Loading...
CC 2010 01 11 CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Furlong, Councilman Litsey, Councilwoman Ernst, Councilwoman Tjornhom, and Councilman McDonald STAFF PRESENT: Todd Gerhardt, Roger Knutson, Laurie Hokkanen, Kate Aanenson, Paul Oehme, Todd Hoffman, Jerry Ruegemer, and Susan Bill PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Mayor Furlong: Welcome and thanks for everyone joining us here this evening in the council chambers as well as those watching us at home. We’re glad that you joined us. At this time to start out I’d ask members of the council if there are any changes or modifications to the agenda. If not then without objection we’ll proceed with the agenda as published. PRESENTATION OF PARK AND RECREATION VOLUNTEER SERVICE AWARDS. Mayor Furlong: I’d like to start this evening, the first meeting of the new year. It’s always nice to recognize some people that have done some great things in our city so I’d like to start with the presentation of the Park and Recreation Commission Volunteer Service Awards. At this time we have two members of our Park and Rec Commission here with us. Jeff Daniel and Elise Ryan so Jeff and Elise if you’d like to join me up here that’d be great. Park and recreation volunteer awards are new this year. This is the first year we’ve presented them at the city of Chanhassen. The purpose is really to recognize the individuals, businesses, civic and school groups and others for their service to our city. Chanhassen’s nationally known as a great place to live and raise a family. Such a reputation is only possible through the efforts of many people and groups, including those who we’re recognizing here this evening. These awards are designed not only to recognize their achievements but also to let others know about some of the great activities going on in our city and to encourage them to get involved where they can. I’d like to start out by making a presentation to a business that’s been one of our services. Mark Halla here from Mustard Seed Landscaping and Garden Center. Come on up Mark. Good evening. Mark Halla: Good evening. Mayor Furlong: Mustard Seed Landscaping and Garden Center’s been a co-sponsor of our annual community special events for the past 4 years. Not only has the Mustard Seed contributed financially but they’ve also volunteered their time and resources to many of our community events. They coordinate with Santa Claus, his head elf and reindeer each and every year for the tree lighting ceremony. They’re also active in the Southwest Metro Chamber of th Commerce and have been active volunteers with our July 4 celebration, Home and Garden Expo and other activities. Additionally the company participates and is involved in various Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 projects with St. Hubert’s Catholic Community, Eastern Carver County School District 112, and many other service projects. Mark, on behalf of the City of Chanhassen City Council we’d like to thank you for your many contributions to and in the city of Chanhassen. Mark Halla: Thank you very much. Mayor Furlong: We have some representatives from the Chanhassen Lion’s Club here tonight. Denny Fisher, the Club President, Jim Lyon and Fran Shepherd. Would they like to come up please. The Chanhassen Lion’s Club was chartered in 1988 and since that time has been involved in many community activities. Among these the club has volunteered for our annual Halloween Party that the city sponsors for several years. Recently they’ve also focused a lot of th their attention on the Chanhassen Senior Center. They contributed financially to the 15 anniversary calendars, the senior center community open house, and have sponsored the annual senior picnic for the last 5 years. In 2009 125 seniors participated in this annual picnic out at Lake Ann. Their involvement in the picnic includes set-up, purchase and cooking of the food and arranging for the entertainment. The Lion’s Club has a long history of being active and involved in our city. Denny and other members of the Lion’s Club, the City of Chanhassen’s very appreciative of your club service to our seniors as well as all the other civic activities throughout the years. Thank you very much. Denny Fisher: Thank you so much. Mayor Furlong: At this time I’d like to invite a couple of young men up here. Greg Drewiske and Danny Hatton. Greg Drewiske is a junior at Chanhassen High School and Danny Hatton is a senior at Chaska High School. During this past year both provided instructional support for the Chanhassen Park and Recreation youth football program. The program was for children in grades 1 through 3 and ran for 5 weeks this year. Both young men provided instruction on the football skills and improving participants knowledge of the game and teamwork. Our city’s park and recreation department certainly has benefitted from utilizing talented members of our city such as these two young men who have assisted us in our youth programs. Greg and Danny I’d like to thank you for your time and effort working with the children of your city and helping Chanhassen be such a great place for people to raise families. Thank you. Alright, well we appreciate everybody’s involvement with that. That’s a great program. Thank you to our park and recreation commission members and members of the park and recreation staff for their assistance in recognizing some of those people tonight. 2 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 ORGANIZATIONAL ITEMS: ? DESIGNATION OF OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER. ? APPOINTMENT OF ACTING MAYOR. ? CONFIRMATION OF FIRE CHIEF. Mayor Furlong: We’d like to move now, since this is our first meeting of the year, there are some organizational issues that we will deal with first. The first being designation of an official newspaper, appointment of acting mayor and confirmation of our fire chief. The, we can deal with these as a single motion if we want or take them individually. Perhaps individually would make a little more sense so with regard to designation of the official newspaper, staff report please Mr. Gerhardt. Todd Gerhardt: Sure. Mayor, council members. Staff is recommending the Chanhassen Villager. They deliver to all residents in the community. The rates were lower than the Lakeshore Weekly News so staff is recommending the Chanhassen Villager as our official newspaper. Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. Any questions for staff? If not is there a motion? Councilman Litsey: I’ll be happy to make a motion that we designate the Chanhassen Villager as our official newspaper in 2010. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Ernst: Second. Councilman McDonald: Second. Mayor Furlong: Second. She beat you. Seconded by Councilwoman Ernst. Any discussion on the motion? Councilman Litsey moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to designate the Chanhassen Villager as the City’s official newspaper. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Mayor Furlong: Next, the appointment of the acting mayor. This would be the member of the council that would stand in place of the mayor if I’m unable to take part in duties or sign documents and such. Councilwoman Tjornhom, you’ve been acting mayor this past year. First of all thank you for your service and the times that I’ve needed to call you, you’ve always been there and I appreciate that. Councilwoman Tjornhom: It’s been an honor and privilege Mayor and this year I would like to actually nominate Jerry McDonald as acting mayor. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Okay. Very good. Is there a second? 3 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Councilman Litsey: Second. Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any discussion? Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman Litsey seconded to appoint Jerry McDonald as Acting Mayor. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Congratulations. Councilman McDonald: Thanks. Mayor Furlong: I’ll call you in the morning. Councilman McDonald: I’ll try to follow in your footsteps. Todd Gerhardt: Remember to have cake when he’s gone. Mayor Furlong: That’s right. Got to have cake when I’m not here. Next item is confirmation of the fire chief. In December the fire department elected Roger Smallback as their fire chief for a 2 year term. Staff recommends continued approval. Chief Smallback is here this evening. Good evening Chief. Would you like to come forward and address the council on anything? This is your time to get out of it if you want. Roger Smallback: No, just you know I’m very honored to you know be named as fire chief for this 2 year term. I’ve been with the Chan Fire for about 15 years now and I guess of significant th note is that on September 25 of this year I retired after 20 years at Blue Cross in IT and quickly learned that I was not very good at being retired so this provides a very good transition into semi- retirement. Mayor Furlong: Great. Very good. Thank you and thank you for your service and for your willingness to continue to serve and step in as Chief. I would certainly put forth a motion to confirm the fire department’s election of Roger Smallback as their chief. Would somebody like to second it? Councilman McDonald: Second that. Mayor Furlong: Mr. McDonald, thank you. Any discussion? Mayor Furlong moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to confirm Roger Smallback for a 2 year term as Chanhassen Fire Chief. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. 4 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 CONSENT AGENDA: Mayor Furlong: The one item that will change, staff’s recommendation for item 1(e) has been to table that item rather than to follow their recommendation that was in the packet so item 1(e), our consent agenda motion would be to table that. I think everybody received the letter requesting that from the applicant. Are there any other items, a, b, c or d that anyone would like separate discussion on? Seeing none, is there a motion to adopt items 1 (a) through (d) and table item (e)? Councilwoman Ernst: So moved. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second. Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to approve the following consent agenda items pursuant to the City Manager’s recommendations: a. Approval of Minutes: -City Council Work Session Minutes dated December 14, 2009 -City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated December 14, 2009 Receive Commission Minutes: -Park and Recreation Commission Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated December 8, 2009 Resolution #2010-01: b. Approve Traffic Control Signal Agreement No. 87681M with MnDOT for Highway 101 South of TH 5 to Lyman Boulevard. Resolution #2010-02: c. Approve Resolutions Designating Old 212 and Highway 101 South of TH 5 to Lyman Boulevard as County State Aid Highways. Resolution #2010-03: d. Hidden Creek Meadows, Project 05-12: Accept Street and Utilities. nd e. Table Gleason Variance, 2111 Pinehurst Drive (Lot 22, Block 1, Pinehurst 2 Addition): Request for an After-the-Fact Hard Surface Coverage Variance. Applicant: US Home Corporation. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: Mark Halla: I’m going to sneak up very quickly. Mayor Furlong: Mr. Halla, good evening. 5 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mark Halla: I’m Mark Halla and 6055 Highway 212. I want to tell you it was really nice to be recognized tonight. Thank you for that. But I also want to recognize you in return. You guys have provided vision and leadership for our community and done an excellent job. You’ve made some really tough decisions on occasion. I appreciate that and I wanted to publicly thank you for that. Our city staff I’ve come to know and respect them to a much higher level in the past several years and they’ve been very patient with me. Served us very, very well. I appreciate them and just as we’ve been richly blessed by God to be in this community, we want to be a blessing in return and I think all working together as one community does that so thank you very much. God bless you this new year. Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. Anyone else that would like to address the council this evening under visitor presentations? Okay. Moving on then. PUBLIC HEARING: 2010 STREET IMPROVEMENT PROJECT 10-01: PUBLIC HEARING; AUTHORIZE PREPARATION OF PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS FOR RED CEDAR POINT ROAD AREA. Public Present: Name Address Gary & Karen Peterson 3632 Hickory Road Jeff Souba 14025 Vale Court, Eden Prairie Curt Wedes 3716 Hickory Road Ric Anding 3715 South Cedar Road Richard Comer 3800 Red Cedar Point Jim Gulstrand 3831 Red Cedar Point Bernard J. Leach 3830 Red Cedar Point Dorothy Downing 7200 Juniper Avenue Alfred & Carla Smith 7314 Hickory Road Kevin Clark 3841 Red Cedar Point Greg Datillo 3703 South Cedar Road & 7201 Juniper Avenue Dave Bangasser 3633 South Cedar Road Ann Osborne 3815 Red Cedar Point Mayor Furlong: What we’ll do is start with a staff report. Mr. Oehme, our City Engineer will provide a staff report and then we’ll have an opportunity for public comment. Mr. Oehme, good evening. Paul Oehme: Good evening Mayor and City Council members. Tonight staff would like to review the feasibility study with the council for the proposed Red Cedar Point street improvement project and hold that public hearing. The purpose of the project is to improve the street, drainage, watermain and sanitary sewer system in this area. Staff has held 2 neighborhood meetings with the residents and have received many comments and concerns from the residents in this area. The main issues that we discussed were the proposed assessments, the drainage in 6 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 the area and the need for the project at this time. Written comments we have received have been included in your packet for your review and the project is, again is only in a preliminary design stage at this time so some details of the project will still need to be worked out with the engineer if this project were to move forward. So at this time staff has prepared a power point presentation for you this evening and I would like to invite Kevin Kawlewski with WSB and Associates, an engineer for this project, to give a brief presentation on the merits of the project. Kevin Kawlewski: Thank you Paul. Good evening Honorable Mayor, members of the council. I do appreciate the opportunity to come and speak with you tonight. We do have a presentation for you. This is the public hearing from 2010 street reconstruction project for the Red Cedar Point area. Designated city project 10-01. This is a required step for projects involving assessments in accordance with Minnesota Statutes 429. Project area is located east of Minnewashta Parkway. It includes Red Cedar Point Road, South Cedar Drive to the south, Hickory Road to the north and Juniper Avenue is the north/south street. Existing conditions are in overall poor condition. We’ll get to a slide that gives you the actual pavement condition index. We’ve had a significant number of breaks in the project area on the watermain system. We do have I/I issues out here. Inflow and infiltration which is ground water and surface water getting into our sanitary sewer system. That does end up costing the City money as we start dealing with the Met Council and treatment of clean water. We do have almost nothing for storm water management in the project area. Looking at some of the pavement condition indexes. You see some 37’s up there. 38’s. 40’s. 11. 63. When the city goes in and looks at project areas we look at an overall index for the entire area. When we go in to reconstruct it makes sense to do an entire area as opposed to certain segments within the property. The average PCI for this area is 48, which puts us in that range for street reconstruction of the whole network. Looking at the watermain, the red dots or diamonds that you see on the slide, we have 12 documented watermain breaks in this area, and they are scattered throughout so it’s not just an isolated problem. It is scattered throughout. We do have an area on the north there where we’re looking at abandoning some watermain. We’ve got 3 breaks in that area. We’d be looking possibly for a second connection in a different location to give us a better water quality feed through there. We do have a high water table which contributes to our ground water infiltration. We do have some casting upgrades that we can do to reduce some inflow of surface water. Proposed improvements, we’re looking to reconstruct streets to their current widths. Approximate locations. Want to replace all the cast iron watermain. As cast iron gets old it gets brittle. When we start to look at reconstructing streets it makes sense to put in a system that’s going to last much longer than the streets we’re replacing. We’re going to look at trenchless installation in locations to minimize impacts. Minimize tree impacts. Boulevard impacts. There may be cases where it makes more sense to open cut, it’s going to be a final, a final design detail as to where those actual areas are. Cost wise there’s not much difference. It’s just going to be how much surface restoration we can avoid by doing a trenchless installation. And it makes some improvements to sanitary sewer system. Joint sealing. Leaks. Cast iron replacements. All of the costs that the City puts in to reducing I/I comes out of treatment costs. Surcharge costs that the City is facing at this point. We’re going to look at some storm sewer improvements where possible. We’re not going to try to force anything but working with the watershed we want to try to do as much as we can with the sense that anything is better than nothing, in their opinion. We do have concerns with right-of-way. Some of the roadways are outside of existing right-of-way limits so that will need to be addressed as we move through final design and how 7 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 we handle that with the residents. We have been asked to gather costs on undergrounding private utilities. Overhead electric. That cost would be passed on through assessment, if the residents chose to go through that. That would not be a City cost. Looking at the watermain system again, it would include complete replacement, abandoning of that piece to the north on the shore. We’d be looking to upsize some of the mains. Some of the mains are not within code requirements. Be looking to go to a minimum 6 inch. We’d be looking at some spot repairs on the sanitary sewer. Some new Y’s and joints. Sealing some joints. In-liners. There’s all kinds of things we can do that do not require excavation. Saves us some cost on how we handle those things. Again the watermain, we do have a private driveway down on the very east end. That area would be directionally drilled watermain. We don’t want to be going in, tearing up that area. Also that section of Red Cedar Point to the east of South Cedar Drive, that gets very narrow. We’ve got some significant retaining walls, buildings right next to the roadway. We’re going to want to do as little as we can for surface disruptions. We’d be looking at directional drilling. We may be able to get by with some open cut on the west end of Red Cedar Point. It’s a little more open in there. A little more room to do some things so those are things we worked out. The way we’ve got it laid out now is directional drilling as much as we can. Minimizing open cut installation. There will be open cut with the replacement of services. That’s an absolute necessity. There’s no way we can get in and reconnect those services without digging holes in the road. That will be required for all of the service replacements. Curb stops will be replaced as a part of the project. Looking at the street, again we’ll be tearing out the existing pavement. Digging in a sand section that’s going to improve our underlying drainage. We’re going to add some fabric underneath. We are looking at some potential curb installation on Red Cedar Point Drive, just to the west of Juniper. We’ve got some drainage that flows overland to the north so we want to pick up some of that water. Get it down into a pond we’ve got proposed there. Again we would need a little bit of easement to construct that pond. We’ve got an outlet shown where we got the maximum elevation allowable for a discharge pipe. The way that system is designed there is an overflow on the pond that would allow it to go to the north and to the west and then out that existing drainage ditch in the north corner of the project. At this point we have looked at options. There is a sliver just off the end of Juniper Avenue that the City owns. There is potential to bring a pipe through there. We do have some sheds and some other things in that area that we would have to work around, but it is possible. It would require a submerged outlet on the discharge pipe which may require some DNR permitting to get into the lake. As far as that, as far as any other drainage issues it’s intended right now to leave it as it is, minimizing water runoff from public right-of-way onto private property. We do have some drainage issues along Hickory Road, on that very north leg that runs east to west. We’d be looking to clean that up as much as we can. Minor grading. Very little piping. Looking at our typical street section, we would be looking to install an 18 inch sanitary, or a sand section. 10 inch aggregate base. 3 1/2 inches of bituminous. This is consistent with what the City’s been doing on past projects for street pavement section. We are looking at a geotextile. We’ve got some softer soils underneath. We want to put the sand in for drainage. Prevent frost heave. Keep that moisture away from the pavement section. It’s going to increase the life of our streets. Again we’d be looking to tie in our side slopes as quickly as we can to keep everything within existing right-of-way where possible. Looking at how the construction would go, the project would be phased. We certainly don’t want the whole project area torn up all at once where everybody is impacted. We’re going to phase it such that we’re moving through the project in an orderly manner. Keeping access on a constant basis. We’re not going to tear up everything all at 8 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 once. We’re going to incorporate trenchless installation techniques where practical. There may be some cases where it will be cheaper and make more sense to open cut. It can go faster sometimes that way. We will have an on site representative everyday during construction so whenever the contractor’s out there working, there’s going to be somebody on site coordinating with residents. Getting a feel for when specific dates or specific events so we can work with the contractor to coordinate efforts around those ideas. Mailboxes will need to be relocated. That will all be coordinated by city staff. Garbage collection will continue much as it is now. That again will have to be coordinated between the contractor and the collection company. Looking at project costs, surface improvements which is all paving, street construction, surface restoration, ponding. Well not ponding. Landscaping restoration. Looking at $883,800. For the water system replacement we’re looking at $447,400. The sanitary sewer for some in-liners, some sealing, we’re looking at $52,900. Storm sewer improvements which would include the pond, $133,600. That’s a total project cost of $1,517,700. Now these costs, these costs do include a construction contingency in the amount of 15%. We have indirect costs, which are financing for bonding, legal costs, engineering costs in the amount of 15%. These do represent the total project costs estimated at this point. Does not include the acquisition of easements. That would be above and beyond this. What you would want to point out that all the projects that we bid, last summer, this fall have all been running 15 to 20 percent below final construction estimates so it’s a good chance that these dollar values will decrease with final bid. Looking at the assessments, we do have 67 single family residences within the project site. 18 multi-unit townhome sites. The way this breaks down, it’s roughly $5,037 per single family unit. $890.51 per multi-family residence. This does follow the City’s assessment policy. 40% of the street cost only are assessed to benefitting properties with the remainder coming from the City funding. The assessments are proposed over a 10 year period at 6%. First payment would be starting in May of 2011 with the first property tax statement. Funding from the street fund would be $530,280 which represents 60% of the street and surface improvements. Assessments at 40% would be $353,520 and then the storm water funds and the sewer and water funds would cover the remainder of the project costs again balancing out at $1,517,700. As we look at a potential project schedule, assuming the council moves forward, or should the council move forward tonight, that would put us into approving plans, authorizing an ad for bid in March with bid opening in early April. The assessment hearing would be held before any construction starts. April 12, 2010 with construction proposed to begin in June. The schedule would be set for construction such that the work would be done by the end of August before school starting. It is a tight site. We want to make sure that we’re in and out of there as quickly as we can. Again substantial completion would be done by October. The only thing that would be left after that would be the final wear course installation in the spring of 2011. With that I would open up or entertain any questions that the council may have or accept public comment. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Questions. Audience: Why don’t we have copies of these things in our hands? Mayor Furlong: Of the power point sir? Audience: The information he gave us in the last 16 minutes. It’s too much to absorb. 9 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: Okay. Todd Gerhardt: We can make that available. We can either, we can email it to you. Audience: No. Todd Gerhardt: Or we can mail it to you. Audience: Thank you. Todd Gerhardt: Accommodate any need that you have. Audience: That will be each of these items? Todd Gerhardt: Yep. We’ll give you the whole power point presentation that he gave. Audience: Thank you. Audience: Can you also give us ones of the thing that was given to you, the council members. I don’t know, about 50 pages. Todd Gerhardt: Council packet? We can include that too. It’s on our web site. Mayor Furlong: Yep. Let’s, what I want to do right now is see if there are any questions that the council might have of the staff then we’ll open it up for public hearing and make sure that everybody has an opportunity to get what they need. I see our Assistant City Manager starting to put a sign up list together so we’ll make sure that everybody gets the information they have, or if you have questions of where you can get it, we’ll make sure those questions are answered as well. Any questions for staff at this point from the council? Mr. McDonald. Councilman McDonald: I guess the question I have is, and again you’re going to have to kind of excuse me because I’ve got these hiccups and so it’s kind of difficult to talk and everything but the question I’ve got is, as part of your assessment in looking at this, if we did nothing, what’s the impact? I mean how bad is it? You brought up issues about the sewer, the water, the fact that we have pipes. We have pipes in there that are very, very old. The road surface evidently wasn’t built to any type of code. What is the impact if we do nothing at all? Kevin Kawlewski: Feel free to add Paul. I’m not sure what the surcharge costs are that the City is paying through the Met Council for the treatment of I/I. That would continue on. You would continue to pay annually. Watermain breaks would still be an annual cost. $7,000 to $10,000 per repair is a typical cost for that. Continued annual maintenance that you wouldn’t be having to do, and I’m not sure what the dollar value is and maybe Paul can put something to that but it’s just continued expenditure that you would not have to do so routinely with the street improvement. Councilman McDonald: Okay. 10 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Paul Oehme: The, again the street maintenance component of it, you know annually we’re out there fixing potholes and fixing drainage issues and cleaning up streets so obviously you know when streets become more deteriorated there’s more time resources that have to be allocated to those neighborhoods so as streets deteriorate it’s just going to take more staff time, overtime potentially to maintain the streets. We get calls all the time on you know potholes and other issues in the streets and it’s, you know it’s something that the City Council has made a priority over the last 5 years to upgrade these streets to a certain standard and we’re just trying to follow through on that. The, again Kevin had alluded to several costs that are consistent with what I understand, or feel would cost the city. Councilman McDonald: Okay. What’s the potential impact to Lake Minnewashta? I mean if part of this is water runoff problems and everything, again if we do nothing what’s the potential impact there? Are we looking at degradation of the water quality? Anything along those lines? Paul Oehme: Yeah, in this area it’s kind of hard to quantify that because a lot of the runoff currently runs through back yards and down streets and through drainage ditches. That, those, that’s, that water really isn’t treated per se. What we’re proposing, we’re trying to do as much as we can out here with as little right-of-way as we have so we’re trying to make, make some improvements and get the best bang for our buck out here so we’re not going to be able to treat everything out here but we’re trying to do our best with what we have. Councilman McDonald: Okay. Thank you very much. Mayor Furlong: Mr. Gerhardt, did you want to add something? Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. The only point on the storm water management is, we have to follow certain guidelines. Federal guidelines for storm water management and whenever you look at reconstructing a street section like this neighborhood, you have to do your due diligence of how you may pre-treat that water before it’s discharged into the lake and you know staff was limited on you know the best storm water management practices that we could do in this area due to the limit of available land for storm water ponds and due to the contours in the area. Where’s the best way to discharge that into, ultimately into the lake? So we were somewhat limited on this so that’s something I think the engineers and staff can sit down and still try to improve on. Councilman McDonald: Okay, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Other questions? Councilwoman Tjornhom and then Councilwoman Ernst. Go ahead Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Thank you. One of the concurring themes I think I’ve heard from emails is, people are really concerned about their trees and the substantial loss of trees and so has the Forester been out to meet with the neighborhood or has that issue been addressed? 11 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Kevin Kawlewski: With what we’re proposing to do the reconstruction would happen mainly where the road is now so we’re not anticipating a high impact to trees. The biggest area would be where the pond is. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Excuse me, is it possible to pull up a map or an aerial or something? Thank you. So can you show me exactly where that, where the major impact would be? Kevin Kawlewski: It’s in the, at the north end of Juniper Avenue. Right there. That’s where the proposed pond would be. The outlet piping is proposed to be directional drilled so we wouldn’t have to cut through there. It would be a trenchless installation underneath the ground. Very little impact. Everything else we would try to do within the existing roadway. Paul Oehme: Just add to that. We don’t, we haven’t identified all the impacts out here yet. We haven’t gone to the final design yet so there might be some trees that are in close proximity to the road that, or a service line that we want to replace that potentially the root structure might be impacted so we haven’t gone to that level of detail yet. That comes in the final design but we know there’s going to be some tree impact out here but we’re going to try to limit it as much as we can. Councilwoman Tjornhom: And when historically when we’ve had these projects and there’s been an impact on trees, do we go back and somehow try to replace them or work with the residents on helping them do something different or? Paul Oehme: Yep. Typically if the tree’s within city right-of-way we do not replace that tree, but there is you know, no. We don’t typically replace those trees because of sight line issues or what not maintenance. You know we try to work with the property owners, replace a new tree where would best be on their lot but we typically we do not go in and replace a tree unless there’s a specific reason or an issue that we couldn’t work around I guess. On a private property side of things so. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: I had one of the same concerns about the trees. Thank you for answering that. I have a few more questions though. One of them is, I saw in the notes that due to the many patching that we’ve done to the streets that it’s actually raised the pavement. Can you speak to that a little more because I’m wondering, we talk about if we did nothing what would be the impact and that, that raises a big concern for me in terms of you know what is that, what’s the consequential result of that if we didn’t because if we’re raising, if that’s raising the pavement that sounds pretty dramatic to me. Kevin Kawlewski: What’s happened over time is it’s a series of continual patching. Skin patches, overlays. What that does is that raises the elevation of the road and over time, I mean there are places out here we’ve got pavement that’s almost a foot thick and what happens, that 12 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 tends to block drainage patterns. That causes drainage problems on private property. Those are some things that we can fix by re-setting the road elevation. And eliminate those drainage areas. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay. And then you had mentioned that basically there’s no storm water management at this location now. Kevin Kawlewski: There’s nothing out there now that’s a formal storm water management facility. There are wetlands in the area but it’s a situation now where water is going into wetlands untreated, which is not legal. Councilwoman Ernst: And then I heard you speak to that saying that you could minimize drainage issues. Kevin Kawlewski: Yes. Councilwoman Ernst: So when you’re saying you can minimize drainage issues that’s not taking care of the drainage issues or? Kevin Kawlewski: There are places out here on the private property where the drainage issues exist that we will not be able to address. Anything that’s next to the road, unless it’s a specific request by a resident that’s willing to give an easement for us to go in and fix it. The City is not allowed to work on private property without an easement or right of entry. If the resident wants to have something addressed and is willing to give right of entry, or easement to the City to have a contractor go in and do it, it’s certainly something we can consider but without that it’s not something that we can address. It’s not within our right-of-way. Councilwoman Ernst: Are we putting one holding pond in this area? Paul Oehme: That’s all we have room for right now is one. Councilwoman Ernst: And then the last question I have is, what, what have we done to minimize costs? Kevin Kawlewski: We have looked at, in cases of watermain replacement, we’re not going to be able to go down the sale alignment so we looked at, if we’re going alongside, leaving the long service in and cutting it up and just replacing services on half the street. We’ve looked at some, instead of replacing sections of sanitary sewer we’ve looked at liners, joint sealants, chemical grouting, those kind of things that we don’t have to go down and dig. That minimizes cost. We have shallowed up the pavement section from what was originally recommended by the geotechnical engineers. They started out with a section of 24 inches of sand with a foot of aggregate base. We think we can go a little bit shallower than that with some Class V geotextile. Separate the underlying soils from the sand section we’re building. We’re going to have to create some free, free draining material under that pavement. Keep that moisture out of that, out of our pavement zone. That’s what results ultimately in all the damage is the frost heave so we attempted to minimize that. We’ve looked at some of those things. We minimize curb. We 13 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 haven’t proposed the addition of curb over the entire project. Specifically in areas where we can channelize water, effect some drainage issues as much as we can. Councilwoman Ernst: So do you have a rough idea of what you’ve minimized that cost from and to? Kevin Kawlewski: I believe we pulled about $300,000 out from where we first started during the feasibility process. Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Other questions? With regard to the storm water pond and the location of that, is that on, who owns that property? Is that? Kevin Kawlewski: The City owns that north half of the triangle that’s there. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Kevin Kawlewski: And the rest would be a required easement. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Okay. So that’s and I heard that question come up so at this point the plan would be to acquire an easement. Kevin Kawlewski: Require an easement from the property, yes. Mayor Furlong: And to work with the property owner to that. Okay. With regard to access to the neighborhood, there’s a single road in and out. What about access for the residents? What about access for emergency vehicles? Response vehicles as well. Kevin Kawlewski: Emergency access, or emergency vehicle access is required at all time. If we’re digging in the road for watermain, that would be the only time that it wouldn’t be passable. There may be times during the day if we’re replacing concrete driveways or something like that, there might be a period of several days that a resident can’t get in if we’ve had to replace a concrete driveway. It takes cure time. You drive on it right away it’s going to ruin it but for the most part, inside of working hours chances are you’re going to be accommodated getting in. Outside of working hours the site will be accessible. Mayor Furlong: Okay. And how, what have we done in the past? We’ve had similar, or other projects where we’re had reconstructions. How have we made sure the residents have access to their homes? Paul Oehme: Well we limit the availability or the length of the street that’s, what the contractor can dig up at one time so, for example if we, the south half of the project area potentially might be a project area so vehicles, residents in this can still access Red Cedar Point via separate roads so we’re going to, you know if we’re going to be working in front of somebody’s house, the contractor would be responsible for notifying that property owner the day before that work takes 14 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 place. Typically they’re in there at 7:30-8:00 in the morning. If there’s going to be an issue with putting pipes in or doing service work and we always try to let the property owners know that we’re going to work in there, and in that case move their vehicle out if they have to get access out onto, onto a public street so we always try to work with the property owners and let them know where the contractor will be working at a specific time so they can accommodate their schedule around that work. Kevin Kawlewski: Some of the other things that we typically do during construction, we do weekly… We have weekly construction meetings to establish the schedule for the upcoming week. We could do web sites. Weekly newsletters letting residents know where the contractor’s going to be moving on a weekly basis so that will help communication on the site. That will give residents access to everybody involved at one single point and we would publish when those meetings would be in the newsletters so if residents need to talk to somebody other than project rep on site, you know there’s an opportunity to get a hold of us. While we’re there. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman Litsey: Seems to me to be pretty similar to Laredo Drive. What happened there and I think from what I recall our experience was pretty good there in terms of communication. Paul Oehme: Yeah, I mean we would try to do our best. There’s always times where the contractor you know doesn’t always communicate well so, we do our best. We try to get like Kevin said, notices. Hand door knockers. What they have in the construction inspector notify property owners what’s going to be going on in front of their house on a daily basis so. Mayor Furlong: Also with regard to the financing options. Obviously that’s a practice the City has offered in the past to residents who don’t want to pay their assessment in full up front, if this is the route we go. The 6%, I think we made adjustments to that, was it last year or 2 years ago. Is that just a place holder at this point until we get, and also the 10 year term. I don’t know if that’s consistent with what we’ve done in the past but those are just place holders at this point for discussion purposes until we get to the assessment hearing which will be coming up in a couple months. Paul Oehme: That’s correct Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Okay. Very good. Any other questions from the council or staff at this time? If not then what we’ll do is let’s open up the public hearing and I would invite interested parties to come forward. Please state your name and address. What we’ll try to do is certainly if you support the project, if you have some questions, concerns about it, this is the time to make sure that we try to get those questions answered so what we’ll probably do is have staff respond to questions as they’re raised. We want to make sure everybody has, has sufficient time to get their questions answered so at this point I would invite any interested parties to come forward and address the council on this matter. Good evening sir. Curt Wedes: Hi. 15 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: If you could state your name and address for the record. Curt Wedes: Curt Wedes, 3716 Hickory Road. Which I have a laser pointer but. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Curt Wedes: The proposed directional drill with that 15 inch drainage pipe from the pond, that’s going to run along my property. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Curt Wedes: Empty out onto our beach and we have no interest in that at all so we’re opposed to the project because of that. As far as streets and watermain and so forth, we’re okay with that but we have no interest in having that pipe running along our property onto our beach. And I asked these guys about a month ago, that wasn’t even on the table. How did that come up? Kevin Kawlewski: It’s simply a matter of lake elevation versus the pond elevation. That route puts us right at water level on the lake. Now we’ve also looked at going through that sliver. Curt Wedes: Well that sliver’s owned by the City. Kevin Kawlewski: Yes, that’s correct. Curt Wedes: Which empties out into a bunch of swampland and so forth which to me makes sense. Mayor Furlong: And can you identify when you say a sliver? Paul Oehme: This piece. Curt Wedes: That piece right there. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Curt Wedes: Yeah, you guys own that. Audience: It goes out onto a point. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Kevin Kawlewski: And it would be possible, we would have to work with the DNR for a permit because it would be a submerged outlet into the lake so we would have to be very cognizant of high water elevations. If the water does raise that we don’t have back-up and flooding issues. Mayor Furlong: Is that something that you’ve looked at or will look at? 16 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Kevin Kawlewski: We’ve looked at it preliminarily. We can visit it in more detail. I’m getting a sense that it’s going to have to run a different way than what we’ve got proposed right now. Curt Wedes: And my neighbor, Albert Smith is right here. He’s on the other side of the proposed drainage from that pond. He asked me to say that he’s against that as well. He’s got grandchildren. We’ve got our children. It’s a nice sandy beach right there. We’ve got a lot of neighborhood kids swim and play right in that area and we’re just completely opposed to it. Unless you know, unless there’s some way after a storm of the century comes through that it’s not going to have a bunch of chemicals and salt and junk from that pond running out into the water right there. Kevin Kawlewski: The pond would be designed such that the road salts and suspended solids and the phosphorus would be limited to within acceptable limits for the watershed district. All of that is governed by the watershed. Phosphorus reduction, suspended solids removal, those are all specific limits that we have to adhere to. So we will certainly look at a separate alignment for that discharge. We’ll still have, we’ll look at how we would maintain an overflow so we don’t have the back-up in the event of high water. Curt Wedes: And that’s Alfred Smith and he’s at 3714. That’s 3716. Alfred Smith is 3714. We’re, you know we’ve got concerns. You get a storm. Kevin Kawlewski: Absolutely. Curt Wedes: There’s going to be a lot of runoff. I would imagine a lot of erosion right there at that outlet. A 15 inch pipe. How big is that? Yeah. Kevin Kawlewski: So I mean we would incorporate measures for energy dissipation so we don’t have the washout but you know I think it will be prudent as we move forward to look at an alternate means of outletting that pond. Curt Wedes: Okay. Councilman Litsey: So if that’s addressed to your satisfaction, you’re in favor of the overall project? Curt Wedes: Well. Councilman Litsey: …see the need for it or? Curt Wedes: I think so. I mean just looking at the economics of it. I mean I’d hate to have to come out here in 5 years and see what it’s going to cost. But yeah, I think it just depends though. We don’t really have a lot of information right now. I know some of the council members addressed some of the concerns that neighbors have about trees. We’ve got concerns about that. We really just don’t know anything you know so it’s, it sounds okay but it depends on what the actual, you know what the survey’s going to look like when, what’s really going to happen. Where the, is there going to be a holding pond? Is there not? You know that type of thing. 17 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: Help us understand the holding pond itself. From what area is that going to collect runoff and where’s that runoff, how’s that runoff currently flowing into the lake? Does it come right. Kevin Kawlewski: Wherever it goes. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Kevin Kawlewski: There’s no. Mayor Furlong: So it just sheet drains. Kevin Kawlewski: It just sheet drains right down to the lake. Mayor Furlong: There’s no management at all or no, it’s just wherever it goes. Curt Wedes: What does it do now? Because right now, if it’s raining we’ll see, I wish I had a laser pointer but, right down Hickory Road it’s like a, you know a little river running down the street. Pools up nicely in front of, well no. Right next to the city property. Paul Oehme: Right in this one? Curt Wedes: To the west of that. Right there. Right there. Puddles up nicely right there but it will just, it just runs right down the street. Empties out through the end of Hickory Road into the north there. Into the lake but some of that comes down through this, I guess adjacent to where the proposed pond is. It’s kind of a downhill, right through, there’s a swale right through there. But I don’t know what comes down Juniper and everywhere else and I just, you know. We don’t know if. We don’t know if that’s going to affect any of that at all or not so. Mayor Furlong: Well what I’m, I guess what I’m hearing too is, is you object to the concept but you also want to know exactly how they could manage erosion and those types of things so I think some more detail would be welcomed. Curt Wedes: Oh yeah… Mayor Furlong: With both of the property owners that are most directly affected. But then also look at some alternatives as well so we can see what the options are. So again, so that you, the staff and the council have better information. Curt Wedes: I’m no scientist but I, from what I’ve read on DNR website and so forth, the best way to manage some of this stuff is through natural filtration. Through wetlands. That, you know cattails and that type of low areas and there’s a bunch of that right in here. There’s a bunch behind Datillo’s. It seems sort of kind of counter intuitive to stick it into a pond when, have it bypass some of the wetlands that are there, that are natural filtration. Like I say I’m not an expert on that. Thank you. 18 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor? Mayor Furlong: Yes. Todd Gerhardt: We have a map to show the drainage. This pond is not going to handle the entire area. Paul Oehme: Right. Todd Gerhardt: It’s you know basically what, 2 acres of drainage area? Paul Oehme: Do you remember? It’s not. Kevin Kawlewski: It’s about that. Paul Oehme: It’s basically this intersection where it’s picking up the drainage off of Red Cedar Point and a portion over here and basically all of, or half of Juniper down here so. It’s very limited drainage area that we can pick up in this area just because of the topography and the location of the available right-of-way so. Mayor Furlong: Alright. Anything else to add at this point? No? Kevin Kawlewski: Not at this point. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Anyone else that would like to address the council? Please come up at this time. Ric Anding: I’m Ric Anding and I live at 3715 South Cedar, Excelsior. Hi Bryan. Thank you for your time tonight. I have an agreement with these guys as far as that drainage. I think it’s wrong. I got a pointer and it’s not showing up. You can’t see it but in that lot behind where Greg Datillo lives, and that’s in that triangle area between Red Cedar Point and South Cedar, and that, what would that be? Kind of the northeast corner there behind Greg’s house. Paul Oehme: This one? Ric Anding: No, the other side. The other side of Juniper. There you go. Yeah, right in there. That’s designated wetland and I’d like the City or somebody to tell me when that was designated as wetland. It never used to be. Mayor Furlong: We can certainly, I don’t know if we’d have the records or if the County would. Ric Anding: Somebody correct me if I’m wrong but that never used to be wetland and this would be an ideal place for that holding pond that you’re looking for. More room. More depth 19 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 to it. And even if it’s wetland and we’ve got to trade off some wetland for wetland, it’d be better to put the holding pond in there. I don’t know how Greg feels about it, rather than down there where you’re not going to have enough room. That’s really shallow down there. Audience: That was always full of water when I was a kid. Well some of it was. Not all of it. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Ms. Aanenson, any thoughts or comments on that? Ric Anding: That used to be, it used to drain and there used to be a creek that ran, well my brother’s got the lot now and it drained underneath Red Cedar Point Road and down behind Gary’s property or down at the bottom that, yeah along in there. Down to where Juniper and Hickory come together and there’s an outlet there and then correct me if I’m wrong Rich, Bernie maybe you guys can tell me, didn’t that drain down Hickory and kind of down? Audience: Until now. Ric Anding: Natural. Audience: That’s right across from us and it is not draining. Ric Anding: No, not now. It used to. Audience: It used to. Ric Anding: It used to. Audience: It used to. The culvert’s been taken out. Ric Anding: Up until the time that the sewer and water project put in we didn’t have a problem down here. And that goes back to ’73 and ’74. Audience: The City pulled the culvert out that summer. Audience: Well I don’t know that the City did but they were told to take it out so that house would sell. Ric Anding: So anyhow I support these guys and I’m against this. The other issue I have is. Mayor Furlong: Excuse me, just to clarify. Your concern is the storm water management plan? Ric Anding: Yeah, and I’ve got an issue with my property too. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Thank you. Keep going. Ric Anding: I’m done with the storm water. 20 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: Nope, that’s fine. I just want to clarify. They’re different parts of the project. There’s the street. There’s the storm and the utilities so I want to… Ric Anding: Yeah, the other issue I had was with the corner of, I have that vacant lot. Right there and there’s talk about taking a corner of that lot and putting a 25 foot radius to make that bend a little bit easier and I’m a little bit concerned about it because that’s less than an 8,000 foot lot now and if you take that property away from me or whatever we work out, that’s almost going to make that lot unbuildable. Paul Oehme: Yeah, just to address his concerns. We were, that was one idea. We had heard from several property owners in this area about some tight radiuses, especially on South Cedar Drive, Juniper, Red Cedar Point intersection there and that was one of the ideas. We’re not intending to take property. We’d like to work with property owners to make this project better I guess is all I’m saying. Ric Anding: And I understand what you’re saying Paul but again my concern is that, whether we take it or how we work it out with the City, whatever happens there, we’re concerned about that 25 foot radius because if you clip that off that corner, that’s less than an 8,000 foot lot now and the City’s, what’s the City requirement? 15,000? So you want to make that lot unbuildable? Councilman Litsey: So what you’re saying Paul is we’re not, there’s no, we’re not going to be taking any property but if we can work with the landowner to make it better we will but if they ultimately decide they don’t want it, we’re not going to do it. Paul Oehme: Exactly. We’re just going to put it back the way it is. Ric Anding: Okay. That’s just my concern about that. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Ric Anding: Oh, one other thing. Sewer. I know that your concerns about the clear water getting into the sewer system and the Met Council’s after the cities to clean this up. What about from the shoreline sewer project from my residence west? Or southwest, whatever that may be. Paul Oehme: You’re referring to this one? Ric Anding: Along there. Are you looking at that line also? Paul Oehme: Absolutely. That one’s scheduled in the next year or two. Ric Anding: But that’s not included in this cost? How much is that going to cost me? Paul Oehme: That’s not going to cost you anything. Ric Anding: Well okay. Well then you go ahead. I’ll give him that one. That’s all I have, thank you for your time. 21 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Kevin Kawlewski: If I may quickly. You mentioned digging a pond in the wetland. That is not allowable without mitigating so if that goes, that’s 2 to 1 replacement ratio. Just so everybody’s aware. Mayor Furlong: But we’re going to find out. Audience: We don’t even know if it’s really a wetland. Mayor Furlong: The designation if not. Kate Aanenson: Yeah we’ll check on that but just to be clear, there used to be a lot of ponds in the city and they got classified as wetlands over time. There’s law requiring what makes a wetland and we used to put all of our storm water in, all of our storm water used to go into kind of these holding ponds and we’ve evolved from that so now we pre-treat it before it goes into a wetland so. Over time as we’ve adopted the City’s storm water management plan, these were classified as, sort of more. They were all site visited and classified as different types of wetlands and what you can do to them. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Very good. Ric Anding: There are different kinds of wetlands? Kate Aanenson: Yes. Based on how they’re functioning and whether they’re agricultural impact. Natural. Higher quality. Yes. Those are all available on the city’s web site too if you’re interested in any of that information. Mayor Furlong: Sir. Please. Gary Peterson: My name is Gary Peterson. I’m 3632 Hickory and I’m on top of the hill up there. And I also have the wetland area where you want to put the pond. Now first of all having reviewed most of the plans that I got a chance to look at for a couple minutes, I’m being double assessed on this operation. Assessed both for where the pond is already. You’ve got a $5,000 assessment on the ponding and another one on my property so you have me in there for over 10, over $11,000 in assessments which I don’t think is fair. Second of all, well one of you call Gary Peterson. The other one you call Gary A. Peterson. I’m the same guy. I’m still Gary A. Now where you’re talking about putting the pond, I think it’s a very poor place to put the pond. I went in and was having trouble cutting my grass on that triangular down there a few years ago and so I went and I hired a man to come in and do some boring. He did a boring in the middle of my lot. Middle of lot, can you? Laurie Hokkanen: I’m just going to try print this out. Gary Peterson: What’ch you gonna do? 22 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Kate Aanenson: He’s wants to point to where his lot is. Laurie Hokkanen: Oh. Gary Peterson: It’s right behind your spot there. Okay, and that triangle I asked him to drill, bore 2 holes for me. One was right there and one is on the edge of the pond. He drilled the one in the middle of the, at the bigger part of that triangle. He said that my, the water table level at that point was in the ballpark of 4 to 5 feet. He would not go back in the pond because his equipment could not be sustained enough so he could even drill a hole in that area of my property. So that means that basically you’re sitting there with about, you know a pond only 4 feet deep that you’ve got to try and run all this water in and that’s just, that’s useless thing to proceed. The other thing is that, you didn’t mention it but you’ve got a storm sewer going down my lot there also. Right along Juniper. Paul Oehme: This one? Gary Peterson: No over by, you’ve got a culvert going across from the wetland that Ric talked about. You’re showing a culvert going underneath the road there and hooking into a storm sewer that’s underneath my lot. You never mentioned that. Now let’s see. Anyway basically I don’t think that that’s a very intelligent place to put a pond. I think you should…with ponds, if you want to do what you’re talking about, the basic thing that Chris mentioned, this is the water coming down Hickory. It just comes down in a galuge. Along that property there you can just as well dig down a big septic tank, and they don’t call them septic tanks but basically they’re holding tanks and the reason for them is to knock the sand and the salt out of land and then take it down and bring it out the waterway which is at the far end of the lot down there. That’s where the water used to go out but you lifted the street up too high and it can’t flow down in that area anymore so you could put a storm sewer in there very easily underneath that street when you’re doing it and run it out on an existing property out there. The existing, I don’t know if it’s a, it’s a wetland or a creek. Audience: It’s a public, it’s a public out to the lake. Paul Oehme: Yeah, it’s an easement. Audience: It’s a creek. Audience: It used to be. Gary Peterson: Well okay. It used to be… Mayor Furlong: Okay. Gary Peterson: Do you understand where she’s talking about? Kate Aanenson: Paul, he’s trying to point that out again. 23 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Paul Oehme: I’m sorry. Gary Peterson: We’re talking about right here. There’s a creek that flows in there and you could…into that creek with an underground storm sewer and use underground storm sewer ponds. They’re not called ponds. I don’t, can you help me? What do you call them when you put those things at street corners where you take? Paul Oehme: Cisterns. Gary Peterson: I think that’s a much better way to do, would be then to put a holding pond in place where you’ve only got maybe 3 feet at the most at the water level. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Yep. Sir. Kevin Kawlewski: Just to address that. Most ponds are typically 4 to 5 feet deep anyway so it’s not, we’re talking about a massive volume of water. It’s just a place to let the water sit and let the solids suspend, the suspended solids settle out. Reduce the phosphorus level before it gets into the lake. Minnewashta is identified as having high phosphorus levels so that’s one of the biggest goals of the watershed district is to reduce that phosphorus, which typically comes off from untreated water in these types of areas so that’s what we’re after with storm water management. Trying to increase the quality of the water in the lake. Quality of the water going into the lake. Councilman Litsey: How feasible is that alternative suggestion here? Kevin Kawlewski: From where the pond is now to the outlet, I believe there’s a foot and a half of elevation relief so it’s very, very flat. We could look at some, again it’s a limited space to look at some open channels. Some vegetative swales but it’s so flat and the space is so limited. The flatter you go the more capacity you have to create by wiping out a swale so to widen, to put a swale in there wide enough at a very flat grade, we don’t have room to do it. That’s one of the impediments right now. Councilman Litsey: But bearing that… Kevin Kawlewski: …if there was a solution around that certainly we could look at it. Councilman Litsey: I guess what I was getting at was putting in one of those, what are we calling them? Paul Oehme: Well he’s referring to an environmental manhole. It’s basically a grip chamber to capture the solids and bigger particulates before it ends up in the adjacent water body. We have looked at that and really would like to put one in here in this situation. Unfortunately with the ground water table the way it is, the elevation difference, the flat, how flat the area is out here, where the lake level is, it’s going to be very difficult to put one of those in because you have to 24 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 go basically from pipe to pipe and it’s, it’s very problematic in these type of environments. In this situation. Todd Gerhardt: So you’re saying you don’t have enough drop. Paul Oehme: There’s not enough drop. There’s very little cover that this manhole would be over where the pipes are coming in and out. Very hard to maintain. Councilman Litsey: Are we talking similar to what was put in the wetland project behind like Bighorn Drive there? Paul Oehme: Yeah, exactly. Councilman Litsey: Those large. Paul Oehme: Yep. Yeah we put one in at the north end of Laredo. Out Laredo Lane. We put one in over by Laredo, the easement to the pond. We’ve put them in several places in the city before but in this particular location it’s very difficult to put one of these in. Councilman Litsey: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Mr. Peterson. Gary Peterson: Well I guess coming down Hickory Lane thing where most of the water’s coming down, you’re not addressing that issue in the first place. That water is all staying on the road to start with now. The second thing is, is that you mentioned the fact that you want the I/I things, your report says you’re not even going to close up the holes in the manhole covers. And you said you removed that from the object of the project. You know you’re not really addressing the project. I mean that’s a very simple thing to do, to go down and put fiberglass plugs in your manhole covers but you say you’re not going to do that in this issue. And you know the biggest water, one of the biggest water infiltration areas is the one that Ric was pointing out that you said you’re going to look at in 2 years or something like that. I think you’re, the thing of actually cleaning up the water I think is not being addressed. I don’t think it’s something you should be making your major presentation. You should believe in those things all out in the first place. Paul Oehme: Well we can address the casting issue first. That is in the project. What we did cut back on was some of the particular removals of sections of pipe that we thought potentially could be lined in the future. Instead of open cutting it, we’re looking at using short liners and lining the pipe instead of completing remove. That’s basically what we took out of the project. Mayor Furlong: Why, why would you do that? Why would you do the alternative versus the? Paul Oehme: Well it’s a cost effective approach. Mr. Kawlewski had talked about some of the cost savings that we identified in here. We’re looking at you know addressing the specific needs for the sewer system at this time in conjunction with the roadway project. We’re potentially would come back in here when we do the other sanitary sewer installation, or improvements on 25 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 South Cedar Road and address additional sanitary improvements in conjunction with that project. We just run into some cost constraints that we’re trying to work around right now. Kevin Kawlewski: One of the most costly affairs of excavating sanitary sewer system is it’s depth. Sewers out here are 15 to 20 feet deep. Most of the right-of-way’s are only 20 feet wide. When you dig a trench you’re out at a 1 to 1 so if you’re 20 feet deep, the top of your trench is 40 feet wide. We simply don’t have space to do that so we’ve taken that approach out to look simply at doing trenchless repairs. Fixing the trouble areas that have been identified in televising. Simply from the fact that we don’t want to go down and make those out. It’s very, very costly and given the tight constraints of the site it’s just impractical to do. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Others that would like to address the council this evening. Please. Barney Leach: My name’s Barney Leach. I’ve been living on that road for almost 81 years and I paid for that sewer and water when they put it in. Now it’s the city that’s going by the city. Now they’re going to replace it. I don’t believe it’s our problem to replace it. I think that’s a bonding issue for the City. Why we should we assessed again to replace that and it’s my idea that we shouldn’t have to pay that again. We pay taxes. Good taxes to be honest with you and so that’s my idea. I just had to, I paid for it once and I don’t think we have to pay for it again. It should be a bonding issue. Mayor Furlong: Okay Mr. Leach before you leave. Mr. Oehme, can you address that in terms of what the assessment covers? Paul Oehme: Yep, exactly. The assessment just covers a portion of the street improvements. 40% of the street improvements are proposed to be assessed back to the benefitting property owners. The sewer system is 100% paid for by the city sanitary sewer fund. Enterprise fund so you would not be directly charged for any improvements to the sanitary sewer, the watermain or any of the storm sewer infrastructure that we’re talking about tonight. So that cost is 100% paid by the city enterprise funds. Barney Leach: But it was in that item that he’s listed there. Part of the cost. Paul Oehme: It is part of the cost but it’s not going to be assessed. We’re not assessing for that portion of the project. Barney Leach: But I’m assessed over $5,000. I put the whole thing in the first time for under 4 and things have gone up but I don’t feel it’s, what was the reason they’re doing this? It’s to improve the water system that the Metropolitan Water Commission is after you for, right? Paul Oehme: No, I mean we’re addressing the condition of the streets. We want to take care of some of the drainage. Barney Leach: That came to you because of this thing, didn’t it? 26 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Paul Oehme: No, I think what’s driving the project is the condition of the streets. The age of the streets. And then do we also look at what the, what the utilities, condition of the utilities are and that all plays a factor in how the City determines what streets are proposed for being improved. Barney Leach: Well my street coming up to my place is perfect. I don’t see any problem with it. And why, well anyway I still think it’s a bonding issue. Al Smith: My name is Al Smith. I live on Hickory Road there and I’d like to know how far that pipe is going to drain. It comes right out at our beach right now. It’s a sandy beach. Where does that pipe, how far out in the lake does it go besides right at our beach? Mayor Furlong: Mr. Oehme, would you like to address it? Paul Oehme: Sure. Yep. Well basically where we meet the pipe at the water level. We typically want to match the normal water level of the lake with the outlet of the pipe so it’d be pretty close to where, or it’d be right at the shoreline is where they have it showing. Al Smith: Where it’s drawn. Paul Oehme: Yep, so. Al Smith: It’ll be a 15 inch pipe coming right out at the shoreline. Paul Oehme: Right, well and again we’re looking, we’d like to move that to a different location and that’s one thing I think we’re hearing loud and clear is the location of that pipe. We’d have to, definitely need to address that in the final design of where exactly that pipe will discharge. Al Smith: Well I imagine that pipe right at the shoreline will make a great big gully right into the lake. Wash all the sand out of the lake there. It’s right at our sandy beach. Paul Oehme: Right, I understand. Yep. And that’s one thing that you know we would have to address. If that final design were determined that that was the case. I don’t know if. Al Smith: Well down I’ve got that big lily pad thing there. Not lily pads but cattails and stuff. That’d make a good clean-up spot right there. Paul Oehme: Exactly and that’s what we’re going to be looking at too. One other thing that we probably looked at in this design would be to put some rip rap at the outlet of the pipe too so no scarring or erosion would take place. With bigger rocks so. Mayor Furlong: Excuse me, if we could keep the side conversations down a little bit so that we can continue to hear the people up here, I’d appreciate it. Thank you very much. Mr. Smith, did you get the answer to your question? Al Smith: Yes. 27 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: Okay. Very good, thank you. Others that would like to address the council this evening. Anyone else? The timing of this project then, maybe we could bring up the slide. Oh, we got another gentlemen coming up. Please. Gary Cobb: I’m Gary Cobb. I live at 3859 Red Cedar Point. And I’m going a little bit different direction and I know Paul we talked a little bit about it at the first fire station meeting. On the townhouses. How you came up with, I believe you told us that they were going to get a total for assessed for 3 taxable lots. How did you come up with that? How did you determine that they were going to be 18 units are going are going to be assessed for 3 taxable lots? Paul Oehme: Real quickly. What we did is we looked at the average front footage of these lots in this neighborhood and took that number and then looked at what the front footage was for the townhomes in this area. Right here. So, and that came, it came out to approximately a little over 3 lot widths averaged out to this area so we. Gary Cobb: Okay. So you’re going on the frontage of Red Cedar Point? Paul Oehme: Correct. Gary Cobb: Then my question is, why are 4 of us who have no frontage on Red Cedar Point getting full assessments? Mayor Furlong: Can you point on the map on the table there sir? Nann, if you could switch the picture. Thank you. Gary Cobb: Okay. It would be these 4 lots. This one. This one. This one. And this one. And this one down here isn’t getting assessed at all. Paul Oehme: The properties, I’m aware of at least 3 of those units that have, they don’t have front footage on Red Cedar Point but their driveways do access off of Red Cedar Point. Gary Cobb: One driveway. A private driveway. Paul Oehme: Okay. One driveway but shared. Gary Cobb: Correct. Audience: By 5. Paul Oehme: By 5 units. Gary Cobb: Yeah. So that’s one question. 28 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Paul Oehme: Yep, that’s the reason is. The practice for assessments are that any driveway, primary driveway that accesses off the road in question to be, that’s being questioned to be reconstruction would be proposed to be assessed. If your driveway, your access is off it. Gary Cobb: So all 5 of the, or all 4 of those lots are being assessed at a full rate? Paul Oehme: That, if your driveway accesses off of that street you would be proposed to be assessed. Gary Cobb: And we’re still, I don’t know if the townhomes are only. Audience: Townhomes have access on the street. Gary Cobb: Only 3 of them. The way I understand it. That’s the way they’re calculating it. And I believe from what you said to one of the other guys at, because originally when I think that project was, this original sewer and water, Barney you could probably help me out. Went through in 70? Mid 70’s? Audience: ’73-’74. Gary Cobb: I bought in ’79 and that was all in but I believe it was the mid 80’s. I got a special assessment for oversized lot for the sewer and water project that I ended up having to pay and I just want to make sure that I’m not going to get assessed for an oversized lot once again. But from what you said earlier I don’t believe we will. Paul Oehme: No. Gary Cobb: Alright. And then my last is, how will, if this road improvement goes through how will it affect our taxes in the future? Will our taxes go up because of the improvement of the road? Paul Oehme: No. I mean the County typically does not assess or look at re-evaluation for a neighborhood that has been reconstructed. So based upon evaluations at the County level, it’s been our experience that the taxes do not go up based upon a road reconstruction project. Gary Cobb: Okay, and then the last one is why, there is that one lot here that doesn’t get assessed at all. Is that because they’re, I believe it is. I’m thinking out loud here but I believe it is because it’s owned by this party and that this, this and this are all owned by the same people. So I’m guessing they’d be taking it out for the parkway instead of Red Cedar Point. Paul Oehme: Right, I’d have to check on that and get back to you. Gary Cobb: Thank you. Thank you for your time. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Appreciate your thoughts. Questions. 29 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Gary Peterson: One other thing. The two I’m talking about, lots I’m talking about are, on this paper are 54 and 51… This is in the book. Paul Oehme: Right. That’s the same one I have. Mayor Furlong: That was Mr. Peterson, correct? Thank you. Good evening. Dave Bangasser: Hi. I’m Dave Bangasser at 3633 South Cedar. Two quick questions. Issues maybe. One, I think the issue that Gary was talking about with the sanitary manholes, it wasn’t so much the casting as much as I think the report indicates that the manholes themselves are in poor shape and that there’s an alternative to go in and seal it. I think most of the neighborhood would like to see the water quality of Lake Minnewashta improve but at least not degradated and I don’t know why you wouldn’t fix something if you know it’s a problem now. You’re in there now. Why not spend the money and fix those manholes internally, and again I don’t think it’s just a casting issue. From the report it sounds like it’s the manholes themselves. The second issue that I wanted to ask for consideration on is, on South Cedar Drive. That’s an 18 foot wide drive. Mayor Furlong: If you can point to, on the map there for people watching at home sir. Thank you. Thank you. Dave Bangasser: South Cedar Drive in this area is 18, paved 18 feet wide. The right-of-way is wider than that. Parking’s at a premium out here, particularly for people have guests. People, you know you’re on the lake. You tend to have a lot of visitors and parking’s at a premium so with an 18 foot wide road, if you’ve got a car parked on the road, there’s not a lot of room to get by and I think particularly on the corner, so I happen to have this corner piece right here as well as this piece right here. I think my garage on that back side or on the north side of South Cedar is the only developed portion north of South Cedar and I’d like to see if it could be considered to expand the width of the pavement there from 18 feet to say 20 feet. I think that my driveway’s probably the area that would likely be impacted the most and I think that I could deal with that. I think it would benefit access to have additional width there. I don’t know if there is enough right-of-way the whole length or not but I know there is on my property to do that. In particular parking’s a premium right at that intersection. Here right where all this comes together. There’s a lot of property owners that have driveway accesses right there and parking is at a premium there. Paul Oehme: Yeah. That’s a great point too. That was, what didn’t make it to our presentation but that was in your background on page 3, at the first paragraph that we talked about working with those radiuses and potentially increasing the width of Red Cedar Drive through that section. Mayor Furlong: So it sounds like we have support to do that. Paul Oehme: Yeah, and again it comes down to the right-of-way and easements necessary to make that accommodation. Mayor Furlong: Good. 30 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Dave Bangasser: And relative to that radius on the corner point there, at the public, at the neighborhood meeting I was asked about that. I have no problem with taking additional radius there. I think you’ve got the right-of-way to do it anyway but I wouldn’t have a problem with your increasing the radius if that helps access. Audience: What page are you talking about? Dave Bangasser: Right here. The very corner of my back piece there. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Would you like to address the manhole? The timing of the manhole maintenance and correction. Kevin Kawlewski: The I/I features that we’ve looked at. The manhole joints are leaking. We do have a program included to seal those joints. The castings we would be replacing with the concealed pickle which is required for I/I reduction by the Met Council so we are doing the steps necessary short of replacing those manholes. That’s part of the cost that we’ve taken out is the replacement of the sewer and of the manholes. Paul Oehme: One other item that we’re adding too is the chimney seals against a manhole, or the castings as well. That’s another thing that we’re adding to, for I/I purposes too. That’s basically a plastic membrane that fits in that first section of a manhole and that’s where we typically see the most I/I. Mayor Furlong: Okay. The other question that came about timing and it’s not on this picture but the other sewer line down on the south side of this other road. The timing of that is not with this project but it’s, is it scheduled to be completed. Is that? Paul Oehme: Yeah, it’s definitely high on our priority list to get that sewer looked at, and actually this fall we were anticipating doing some smoke testing in this area to find out where there’s problems on that line and surrounding sewers in this area as well but due to the weather conditions, that never happened so we’re anticipating trying to do this in the spring so, so we’ll identify what the problems are and then the following year actually do the implementation. Mayor Furlong: Is there any cost savings or interruptions to property owners or any benefits to doing both of these at the same time or are they truly independent? Paul Oehme: You can talk about that Kevin but I would feel that they’re semi independent. They’re completely different contractors that do the sewer work, or the lining work versus the streets and the watermain work. It’s a pretty quick process. It’s you know one section of pipe can take upwards of maybe 2 hours to do so it’s fairly painless to inconvenience the property owners. The only issue is for service going into the house. There might be, need to be some coordination of the property owners to make that connection work. 31 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: Would this, these other improvements that you’re talking about, would this be something done in conjunction with similar type of improvements to other sections of the system across the city so we’d bring somebody in, in a number of areas at a time? Paul Oehme: Exactly. It’s a completely different contractor that does that type of work. We do sections of the city at one time and this is, the Red Cedar area is a smaller area. Coordination between the contractors could be a problem when the road’s under construction so it’s, it kind of makes sense to separate those two improvements out. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Kevin Kawlewski: Essentially what you’re doing there, they’re very specialized processes. By keeping a cured in place lining project, which is what the lakefront project is, you’re allowing your prime contractor to do a whole bunch of that type of specialized work. This area. Other areas of the city. The unit price comes down with volume and that kind of deal. If you incorporate it in with a straight reconstruction project, the unit price goes up substantially, plus you’re getting him now as a sub-contractor so you’re paying mark-up from a sub to a prime on a higher unit price. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Audience: That’s if you were to include them together? Kevin Kawlewski: Yes, that’s correct. Audience: I’d also think that he wouldn’t want to be driving in there to work on it if the road’s all torn up. When he doesn’t have to be. Mayor Furlong: Right. Right. Others that would like to provide public comment. Sir. We’ve got a couple coming. That’s fine. Just take your turn. Jim Gulstrand: Jim Gulstrand. I’m at 3831 Red Cedar Point. It’s the fifth house on the right hand side as you go up. Right here. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Jim Gulstrand: Yep. And if you go back to the last illustration that we had up there that had to do with the sewer. It was on up there just a second ago. Watermain and sewer. We’re on that driveway. Is that driveway that accesses the 4 pieces of property that are in the back there, is that all going to be torn up also? Paul Oehme: The intent there is not to tear up that. That, or replace that watermain. Or sewer. Jim Gulstrand: It is not? Paul Oehme: It’s not the intent of those projects. 32 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Jim Gulstrand: Okay. Because it is illustrated there but it isn’t. Paul Oehme: It is. It is shown here but it’s a different color. You can’t see it from, yeah. On the present, or on the overhead. Jim Gulstrand: Alright. Thank you. Gary Peterson: Can I ask one more question? Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Gary Peterson: Gary Peterson. Is anything going to be done with the power poles? You said you’re not going to do, go underground. On my property the power poles are so bad shape that the kids actually swing on the voltage, on the phone lines between the two poles and they tried to tighten them and they say the poles are not capable of improving. Is there going to be something done for that kind of stuff? Paul Oehme: Well first off where we are still anticipating getting some more costs from Xcel and some of the other private utility companies in this area to do underground, all the utilities so once we have that information then we would like to present that to the property owners and see if the property owners would like to participate in or help, and pay for the cost of undergrounding it and so we’re still work with them. We don’t have all the final costs yet but to answer your second point, the private utility companies have already been contacted under this proposed project and they are evaluating the needs of their infrastructure. Typically when we do a street reconstruction project they come in prior to the city reconstructing the street and working on their utilities. Replacing gas mains or overhead powers or power poles so I don’t know at this time exactly, or what the intent of Xcel, whoever owns those power poles are but, and we always work with them to try to make sure that they’re infrastruction is taken care of as, when our project is taken care of. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Kevin Clark: Good evening Mayor, council. My name’s Kevin Clark. I live at 3841 Red Cedar Point. So I’m Jim’s neighbor. I live right there so. Fortunately maybe close to the paved street. Just some questions but no special order. With the temporary water line would there be reduces on use? I think that’d be something people might want to know. Paul Oehme: No. Kevin Clark: As far as flows or you know restrictions on watering your lawn or washing cars. I mean would there be restrictions on that? Paul Oehme: No there’s not. 33 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Kevin Clark: Okay. When we talked about the wetland that, and I’m familiar with that but I’m wondering if there is an opportunity when you think about, I don’t know if this is still up. Yeah. You know if there could be some replacement on St. Joe because I think there’s a retired farmer that’s been harvesting Lake St. Joe and a few neighbor boys have been harvesting beavers for the last 10 or 12 years out of there too, but maybe there’s an opportunity to do a replacement and actually embellish an area that would benefit the community and still allow us to accomplish the goal because while it’s, you know the depth of the proposed area is going to be shallow and impacted by ground water levels, the area where it’s at, designated or not has been functioning and that’s why this neighborhood was kind of designed around it. It just seems like probably over the last 20 years it hasn’t been maintained and it’s functionality has been lost. So something to look at. You mentioned updates. It might be an opportunity for you know web blast to let everybody know. Are there going to be additional joints when we do, if watermain services or is it just going to be new with the main, a new saddle and then connecting to your existing core rather than introducing more potential break opportunities? I mean that’s just a question from my standpoint. Paul Oehme: Yeah. Well if we directional bore, I mean put a new core in the main and then out to the house we do copper and then typically we would put in a new curb stop box as well so and then connect onto your existing line from there so. Kevin Clark: So my neighbors understand that. The copper’s just going to come from the main to the core. Not from there to their house. Paul Oehme: Well if they have a curb stop box on their property, on their property line we would anticipate replacing that infrastructure as well. Kevin Clark: But not coming into the house? Paul Oehme: But not coming into the house, yep. Kevin Clark: Okay. Todd Gerhardt: So just so everybody understands. From that curb box to your house will be your responsibility as a homeowner if it should be replaced at this time. Or if you’d want to replace it. Kevin Clark: Couple things tie together here. I mean starting in mid-June and finishing up in August. 2 1/2 months. It’s a pretty aggressive project and they’re going to remove 3 feet of material. Where are you going to take it? I’m not quite sure. That’s a lot of material for the sand, aggregate, base or pavement section. Considering there’s, you know you’re going to be working around infrastructure. Gas line. Everything that’s already out there. So I’d encourage, you know originally it said 2 feet of section. Done a few communities in your neighborhoods in the community and I don’t know if I’ve ever built one to that spec. It just seems heavy. I mean just, it might be something to relook at. Fabric throughout. Just from a timing standpoint. 34 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Paul Oehme: I just want to make clear, that is in the design already. We have eliminated a good portion of that sand section we use and…the pavement section to accommodate the schedule and cost. Kevin Clark: Just from a timing standpoint that takes a long time to set it up. Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Kevin Clark: You’ll figure out the mail, garbage, paper delivery stuff and let us know. Parking. If it goes through I think we should, you know just special occasions or getting us passes or the ability to have something so that you could leave your car overnight at the park parking area because that might be all of our parking lot for the season. Or you might just designate that Red Cedar Point parking and allow overnight where we don’t do that today. Or at least special passes because there are going to be some graduation parties, some weddings and you know those kind of things. This is going to really throw a monkey wrench into that. Mayor Furlong: And Mr. Clark just to clarify. The park you’re referring to is Roundhouse? Kevin Clark: Roundhouse Park, right. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Kevin Clark: Certainly I think you’ve heard the questions that neighbors have. I mean I’m a little bit on the front side of it. Kind of on the watershed on the whole project right now. I can see the merits of it. Timing wise. Long term but I think that you know certainly the character the neighborhood, people’s concerns about trees. The fact that if we’re going to go through this to kind of address to some satisfaction the drainage because at the end of the day it’s the lake and it’s inherent value that’s the important thing. And that kind of drives to the next one which is you know, the work’s going to take place in the community but the watershed breaks right about at my driveway and runs back and if they tear up that road, the best practices are going to have to be right here because they currently really aren’t, you know. That manhole gets covered a lot, even under the current conditions so the whole stormwater management system’s going to really have to be impeccable at that end of it because that goes right to the lake. Talked about sand section. Just a question of clarity because you mentioned terms and percent as a place holder and I kind of understand that but would those, what would the flex be in those? I mean would the term be shorter and the percentage be higher or not yet known? Mayor Furlong: I think the answer is not yet known. Last year I think we did as a percentage, it was 1 or 1 1/2 percent above what the City’s borrowing rate was. Kevin Clark: Okay. Mayor Furlong: Rates are variable and they’ve come down so I think that, if I’m not mistaken, so we’ll confirm that. The term, I don’t know if we went out 10 years last time or if we were 6 or 8. It might have been. 35 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Paul Oehme: Yeah, last year it was an overlay year so it was 8 years and then Laredo was 10 years. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. So those are things that will be firmed up as we get to the, to the next public hearing which will be at the time of the assessment. Kevin Clark: I just, I know I get confused on it even though I have to kind of delve into it more often that I choose to but it might be helpful just for a real, a little cheat sheet to tell people how that works once the assessment comes alive because if you pay it off prior to assessing it then your net is what’s on the screen. The day after it’s that plus the full year’s interest and then what your annual payment, minimum would be because it’s not just a push forward for whatever the term is because I think people are working through their numbers and thinking that you know there’s a $5,000 interest at the end of 10 years and that’s not really the scenario so it would be helpful I think to both sides to clarify that so people understand. Mayor Furlong: We can certainly do that and again the financing is provided as an option. Property owners are free to use their own assets or have other financing available. Home equity lines or those types of things. Kevin Clark: Right, I understand but a lot of people are going to default to that because they don’t have the ability to, may not have the ability to do that. Mayor Furlong: Absolutely and that’s why we have it in place but we can certainly get, get some more information on that. Kevin Clark: Those are all my questions. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Yes ma’am. Ann Osborne: Ann Osborne. I live at 3815 Red Cedar Point. We’re up on the hill. We’re all the ones that are being charged and not being on the street. I’m really doing this for Elizabeth Novack who lives at 7210 Juniper and at the present moment has a burned out house and is trying to rebuild it and she’s across from where this lovely pond will be and she’s very much opposed to it and wanted that voiced because it will affect her considerably and so I wanted to at least share that with you. That she is concerned about that. She right now has trees and wooded area and it is on city property that you’re talking for part of it and that means you’re going to knock down the trees because the city won’t spend the money to put the trees back up. It’s on their property so I’m just putting that in perspective. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Sir. Jeff Souba: My name’s Jeff Souba and our property is 3617 Red Cedar Point which is right here and I guess my only real concern is the timing of the issue. This is a summer cabin for us. It’s only used during the summer. We do not go out there at all the other 9 months of the year. To have this start in the middle of June. End at the end of August significantly affects our use of our property. This is the only time we use it. If you could have it start earlier. End earlier. Start a 36 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 little later. Run into the middle of September or end of August, it would significantly make it easier for us. Less impact. That’s all. Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Greg Datillo: Hello Honorable Mayor. Mayor Furlong: Good evening. Greg Datillo: The City Council. I have to compliment you for making our city the second best town…and the new high school. I don’t think there’s ever been a City Council that has gotten so much done and the good for this city and I just honestly want to thank you because nobody realizes how much work you guys do and the pay is not there. My name’s Greg Datillo. I live at 7201 Juniper Avenue and I also have a cabin on 3703 South Cedar and I had a little presentation here for you that you could actually kind of take a look and see what our neighborhood’s all about. Welcome to Red Cedar Point. Was established in 1870. It is most likely the oldest neighborhood in the whole city. Now here, what you should know is that our neighborhood character. We’re diversified homes. They range from 600 square feet. Do you know what a 600 square foot house is? That’s 30 by 20. And I’ll show you in the presentation what that house looks like. And there’s 6,000 square feet. It is the most diversified neighborhood in this town. Okay? You’ve got European road. Width 15 to 25. I know if you’ve ever been over to Europe all you’ve got to do is come into our neighborhood and you’ll see on how Europe is in regards with their roads. Homes touching the road. We’ll show you where there’s actually houses that are right on the road because if you have your elbow out you’ll actually get it bumped. Okay? Here the neighborhood character. It was established with 40 foot lots. Okay? Because back when it was established in 1870 40 foot lots was a large lot. You’ve got surveyors that charge 2 to 4 times to survey our property. Paul will tell you why. Why Paul? Why do they charge us 200 to 400 percent than any other property in Chanhassen? Why? Paul Oehme: Well they can’t find the pins for one. Greg Datillo: Can’t find pins. I mean it is like the wagon trains came through and platted out our neighborhood, okay. And I feel for these guys in what they’re trying to do is trying to you know get a square peg in a round hole. Okay? Now here is city ordinance regarding overhang was tighten. We were the neighborhood, in fact right next to my cabin is this house. Right there. See that overhang. You passed an ordinance to say oh, overhangs cannot now be, that’s part of the building and you’ve got to be what, 4 feet, 6 feet from the property line. Okay? So that there is Red Cedar Point Road. Now my involvement with this has always been with Minnewashta Parkway. They have upgrade. I was the one in 80, back in the early 80’s that got the neighborhoods all hyper about, we were the most park deficient neighborhood in Chanhassen. Okay? So here Minnewashta Parkway, the trailway was our first thing and then the second thing was, thank you for Roundhouse Park. So here with dealing with the City, never really had any problems with the City in regards to well just tell us what you need and we’ll help you on out and that’s how you’ve always been. So here, Red Cedar Point is, this is right on our corner here. Now Minnewashta Parkway. Now you know this was the third transcontinental freeway. Okay? From the east coast to the west coast, okay. So this here, the other one was the Lincoln and the, 37 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 the Lincoln Parkway and the Christopher Columbus and we were the one from Massachusetts to Washington so right there you, you know back in the 1912. Now, this is going up the road so you kind of have an idea. Okay? This runoff here is going to end up in Little Lake Joe and that’s kind of what was already brought on up. Okay? Now here is, you know here’s a house here. Bernard Leach. Okay? Okay you go down the road here and there’s my house. See that garage right there? That garage. With the white doors there. Oh there it is right there. That’s the old Red Cedar Point Homeowners Association back in the 1920’s. See that chimney there? Okay? That’s the kilowatts when I took off the inside siding. Okay? Back when our point was only kerosene. There was no electricity. This here was in the little town hall which is my garage. Okay? Now here, that’s the original door, okay? Of the little, of our neighborhood. Our Red Cedar Point Homeowners Association. Okay? Now here is just, you know that’s a neighbor kitty corner to me. Okay. Let’s, you know here, that right here, how is people doing this over here? Oh there was a camera. Okay. Paul Oehme: You want it? Greg Datillo: Yeah, where’s the camera? Mayor Furlong: It’ll come back. Greg Datillo: Sorry, sorry. Okay. So here I’m just, I’ll loop through here. Right there is the problem. The lowest spot of the whole point is right there. Where everybody’s talking about what the City owns. If you see those trees there, that’s what the City owns. That’s the lowest point on the whole parkway. Okay? And that’s what our other neighbor here was talking about is, why don’t we run the water straight out there because that is the lowest point and the reason being is because it’s a wetland and we know we’ve got to trade land and whatever but that’s what we’re talking about right there. Now when we go through here, you’ll actually see this is where the water would actually you know drain down and goes on out through. Here’s the 20 by 30 foot house there. 600 square foot. There’s another house. But you will not find one house that has the same floor plan. There’s nowhere else in this town that has the uniqueness, the diversification of our neighborhood. Look at the roads here. I mean you’re talking about Europe style homes. This here is, in fact that house is still only has 30 amp, right? 30 amp electric. Now there’s another house. Okay. This here, here is the road and there’s houses right down the road here and I didn’t get a good picture but they’re actually right on the road and if you don’t watch it you’ve got, you’ll actually hit their houses. There you can see it right there. Kevin Kawlewski: It’s not public road at that point though. Greg Datillo: No, it’s not public. It’s the access on down. Okay. As you can see here all the roads are very, very, very narrow. Now environment runoff, rain runoff to Lake Minnewashta. Okay? Now you’re actually going to be able to see what we’ve all been talking about. Okay? Today’s is nature’s way of rain runoff. 130 years of nature’s way is how we’ve been doing it in our property. Now Lake Minnewashta has good water clarity at 8.9 feet. Now this is according to your web site as of today. It also has with a low phosphorus and I just heard something about we didn’t have good water. Okay? But this is on the City of Chanhassen’s web site as of today so I don’t know, I mean our lake, when I hear reading in the paper about all the other lakes 38 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 around here, we have a great lake and it seems like it’s been clean. Correct me if I’m wrong. I don’t know. I mean everything I’ve seen you know with the lake, it has been clean. Okay now, environment rain runoff to Lake Minnewashta. Now we have a proposed man made way and that’s kind of what we’re talking about now. Okay? Is replacing a natural way with a man made way and I want to try to convince you to say our water’s actually going to be cleaner if we do nothing with what you’re planning on doing, and I’ll show you why I say that. Man made built holding ponds. Holding pond size restriction. If he doesn’t sell his land to you, you’re going to have an area that is how big? Smaller than this area. Okay? Everything’s kind of planning on him selling. Okay? Or you know giving you the right. Okay? As he said, water table there is 4 feet down. So how far can you really dig? Okay? Number of holding ponds is restricted to 1. Why? Because it’s 40 foot lots. It’s been around for 130 years. Okay. Environmental rain runoff to Lake Minnewashta. Under proposed man’s way, man made wetland will eliminate natural’s way of keeping our lake clean. Okay? The way it’s been doing right now, and I’ll show you where the water is running out and there’s nothing there that has ever been reported about our lake being polluted from our runoff currently. Law that meant good but not flexible when causing harm. I mean it’s a classic example of, you know and I agree. There are great laws but sometimes it just doesn’t apply. It makes things worst. So here is my house. I should be all for this because that’s the wetland right there. That’s where all the water drains right now. Okay? That’s in the center of the point. This is huge compared to, and we’ll get into the maps here but this is huge compared to what you guys are going to be planning for a little holding pond. Okay? But this is where all this water is going. All the water that’s going down Red Cedar Point Road is going down, and there is the, the pond right now to the right. So we’ve got all the rain water coming down Red Cedar Point Road. All the rain water coming both ways. That’s Red Cedar Point Road. All the rain coming down Juniper. Right now the rain water, okay? From Juniper Avenue comes down and takes the curve around my lot there and ends up right to the right there into the swamp, so we have all of these roads. You’ve got the hill going on South Hickory. That water goes down. Some goes out to the lake this way, which the new holding pond’s not going to do, and a lot of it goes to the right and then ends up again into the, it goes down the road here and then goes to the left into the holding pond. So you’ve got about eh, two-thirds of all the road surface right now is going into my pond behind the house. Okay? All the water going down South Cedar, all the water is going into my pond. Okay? Now here is my pond. Not my pond. My neighbor’s pond. Okay? So the water goes in here. This is very, very important because this water very seldom ever makes it out to the lake so my question is, is the quality of water that we are going to put into the lake now from this holding pond going to be cleaner than no water ever making it? And you can’t tell me that no water is not going to be cleaner than water going from the holding pond so make a long story short, this water very seldom ever makes it. Why? Look at this. It goes across the street and this is where the water travels for a block. It gets filtered all along the hillside on Peterson’s lot there. Keeps going. Keeps going. Okay? Filter, filter, oh, there it comes out of there and it comes out right by the road right there. Okay? So now the water is very, very clean. What water makes it which is very seldom any water, and then it goes down. Or here’s the water coming down the hill, which your holding pond isn’t going to get anything of because the holding pond’s over to the left so all of this water is going to end up going down here. Down the road. If you take a look here, to your left is where the water from my pond behind my house is coming and then right here it’s the water coming down the hill and it’s going to go down to the end of Hickory. Here’s another view. There’s the hill where it’s dark brown. The water’s coming on down and then the road 39 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 from Juniper, from the right is coming. Now it’s taking a left hand turn. This is the house that if you raise the road you’re going to flood their house. That’s why there’s no solution to raising, getting rid of the puddle in the street. Because if you do you’re going to have the water go in to that building there and you can’t do it so he’s the one who’s been complaining and that’s one of the reasons why we have a low quality road is because a lot of that is determined by how many people call. He calls every day. Okay? So here water goes down. Okay, and this is the natural way for the last 130 years. It goes on out now through this channel and it goes right on out to the lake here. Okay? So my question here is let’s measure the quality or how polluted it is in the spring and actually see if we’re polluting the lake and I’m going to say that we’re not. Why? Because Rich over here, his dock is right next to there and he’s lived out here, I don’t know how many years Rich. You know and I’m just saying, he’s right there and if there was stuff falling on out there, he’d be the first one because he’s an environmentalist. Okay now this here is the, this is where the pond’s going. You know this is where we’re talking about. This is why Novack doesn’t want it because those trees are right across the street from her. Okay? That yellow house there, the reason that that person who you’re going to put the pond next to is the bank. The bank owns it. Okay? So that’s why you’re not going to have anybody who’s going to move into that house. They wouldn’t sell that with a $530,000 offer here. You know a person in the neighborhood offered $530,000. They refused it. Well how much do you think they’re going to get with a holding pond right next to their window there. Okay? Now here is more trees. Okay? This is what is going to have to go in and that’s where your holding pond would have to go. This here’s the natural way to get the water on out. The lowest part of the point is right there. Right where those trees are and that’s the dedicated wetland. Okay? Well if that, if the water drained out there instead of the house on the right, and that’s you know this young couple over here where all the water’s going to be pouring out on their beach. I don’t know anybody who’d want to have their, the rain water right on their beach. I don’t think anybody wants that but this is the alternative they were talking about is why don’t we just run the water through here. Okay? The next thing here is this is all the wetland here that that water would go into, and I guess that could be against the wall. There’s another picture of it. Okay? That’s the yellow house. That’s where the pipe will come through, right on that side of the house. Then it goes right, see that retaining wall right there? That’s where the pipe goes through. That’s the road. He goes underneath the road there and then there’s the house that you want to put the pipe next to that’s on the lake that they just got done building. Then here is the side of the house and that’s where he’s saying well why don’t you run the water where the low area is. Right straight here, right through here is where the pipe goes. That’s Smitty house on the right side and their house on the left. Oh! There’s their deck. Then the pipe runs under their deck. Then it comes right on out and there’s their beach and that’s where it will be draining out, right by their beach. Right next to that tree. Coming on down right there. Okay? So that there is I’m going to say not a good solution for anybody in the neighborhood in regards to running that thing there. Okay that’s just another picture of their lake front there and their beach. Now what we’ve got is all this rain water right here that you’re seeing is all going to now get, be put into this manhole right here. So this is a manhole that is going to restrict the water from going into the pond. So all that water from Red Cedar Point Road, all the water from Juniper and both sides of Red Cedar Point Road are going to go into a manhole and then that drainage store is then going to, oh there’s another one on the other side because we’ve got to make sure it doesn’t get into the wetland that’s natural that’s behind our house. Okay? Now all this water’s going to get converted over to here. That’s where the water’s going to all end up. Instead of going behind my house and then sitting there 40 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 and probably never making it to the lake. Okay. This here, environmental. Unwanted changes. 30 trees, mostly mature cut down for the road. Okay? That’s on this page right here in your report. Okay? 30 trees, mostly mature will be cut down for the road and another 22 trees mostly mature cut down for utility. I threw in the mostly mature. Okay? Just to add a little effect to it. Okay. You guys having fun? Okay. I am. Okay. Facts found in feasibility report. Opinion of probable cause. Okay. Or cost. Unwanted changes. Character of neighborhood will be entirely changed. Okay? Why do I say that? Construction materials same as all the new neighborhoods built in our area. Okay? You’re going to have 4,100 feet of concrete curb. I’m just telling you on our little, narrow roads with concrete curb, it’s going to change the whole picture of our neighborhood. It’s going to look like all the new neighborhoods that have built around our neighborhood. Okay? So I agree. If you’re going to re-blacktop, you know you should do these things. Okay? But I’m just saying at a price of the uniqueness of our neighborhood. This right here is trees. Those are probably likely to go because you can see where the property line is okay, so those are beautiful trees that you come in right when you get onto our point. Those are gone. Here you’ve got trees going all the ways down. Just to give you an idea of all the different trees. And all those trees are gone, okay? And I look at that through my front window. All those trees because you’ve got to put your holding pond in there. All these trees going along here. There’s more trees. It’s in front of Peterson’s. Okay? There’s trees going down south Hickory. Okay? Here you’ve got water running down, or I’m sorry. You’ve got the trees there too going down south Hickory. Financial build estimate $1.7 million. Now that was in the report that you received from the City here. Okay? This report here. Now 1.5 is kind of what we’re showing tonight but I don’t know how the 1.7 because the math didn’t add up on here but I used this number so here I’m just using what the City gave to you Thursday. Okay? The $1.7 million. Okay? Now here what you got is the road is $883,000. You’ve got $52,000 in sewer and you’ve got the watermain, storm sewer, great. 1.7. What we’re saying now is 1.5. Okay? Financial. Who pays the 1.7? Here Red Cedar Point residents pays $353,000 and the City, and that’s great. That’s a great thing for us. That you’re going to spend $1.4 million dollars on our area. Okay? Met Council, whatever the minus or the plus is on that and then what’s really the net cost to the City? I don’t know. That’s a question to the experts. With the Met Council here. I mean how much is really the City going to spend after we get the money from the Met? Or we don’t pay a penalty. So what number would, what’s our bottom line? Paul Oehme: Well I mean we’re, it’s, I think in the feasibility study it was $50,000 for the sewer improvements so basically that equates to the improvements to the sewer system. So that would, if you want to call it Met Council. Greg Datillo: Gotch ya so then here the sewer would only be spending $1,344,000. 1.3. Todd Gerhardt: We don’t know the calculation of what the benefit, we don’t know how much infiltration you have into the area to do the equation back to answer how much we’re going to save. Greg Datillo: Okay, gotch ya. So, but the max is what $200,000? Todd Gerhardt: You have to meter that. 41 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Greg Datillo: Is the max $200,000 or something like that? Paul Oehme: Yeah, it’s roughly $300,000. Greg Datillo: Okay, so we know the City’s going to spend well over a million dollars for our neighborhood. Okay? To change it. Okay? Now financial Red Cedar Point. There’s 85 taxing units. 40 retired families. There’s 47% of the residents out there that do not have income like all of you do. They’re living on a fixed income and I don’t know if anybody has seen their 401K or whatever, okay. Older people are really struggling right now because they do not want to touch what they have left in their little retirement plan. Because that’s all they’ve got plus their social security. Okay? So you’ve got 47% of the population in our area that’s on a fixed income. Okay? The 40% of the road is going to be an issue for them. You’ve got 18 in the townhome. You’ve got 22 non-townhome actual. So you’ve got $353,000 gross to $484,000 in interest income. Okay? Because that there when you add on the 6% and according to the bond municipality index Sunday we should be getting our bonds at 3.25%. AAA for a 10 year should be 3 and a quarter. Why are we getting charged 6? So if we did get 3 and a quarter then is the City okay with that instead of making up the 40% that’s your, or the 60% that you guys are paying. See you’re charging us 6. AAA and that was because your hard work. Making our city number one. Number two in the country. We got a AAA. AAA 10 year bond right now is 3.25. Okay? And you’re charging us 6 in your proposal so the question here is maybe at that time it was 6. Should it now be 3 and a quarter? That’s a question. Mayor Furlong: And we addressed that earlier this evening. The 6% is a place holder. The practice has been in the last couple years to do about 1 1/2 percentage points over what our borrowing cost is. Greg Datillo: Okay. So on there, that 60% then helps you get paid back with the extra interest. That’s fine. I mean you know that’s. Mayor Furlong: Well yes. The City expends the funds and then the assessments are either paid indirectly or over time with interest being charged to those who pay over time. Greg Datillo: Right, and the extra 1 1/2 percentage which actually helps offset the 60% that you guys are paying. Remember we’re paying 40, you’re paying 60. Mayor Furlong: Correct. Well, the allocation’s 40/60 but a lot of that is from administrative costs and other costs that the City incurs. Greg Datillo: Right, okay. That’s fair. Okay. Financial good stewards of tax revenue. A. $883,000 is road costs. There’s your 3 and a quarter percent. You’ve got $28,000 interest to pay for annual maintenance. Okay? Now here, time value money if we can get 3 and a quarter percent, you’re looking at $28,000 in interest. Okay? That we could earn if you didn’t spend $883,000. No? 42 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: No, well I’ll defer. We don’t have our Financial Director here but that’s the, those rates are borrowing costs. The interest income that we earn on money in the back is less than 1%. Greg Datillo: Okay. Mayor Furlong: So… Greg Datillo: So then we add 1%. So that will change this number up here. Here is the property taxes for our neighborhood. Okay? We have $429,000 is our gross with all the residents. Is it about 20% that the City gets? Mayor Furlong: Approximately. 20-25. Greg Datillo: Okay. That’s our payment to the City. It’s $85,832. Okay? 8% increase over 2008 in gross tax. Okay? That’s what we got in 2008 was an 8% increase. Yes. Go through the 2000, I’ve got them right here. The 2008. Here’s everybody’s tax statements and I’m more than happy to leave it with you. Here they all are with all our citizens right here. Okay? So we get, I agree. I have 2 properties. One on the lake. That went up, how much Joan? 17% it went up this year in 2010. And then my house only went up a half a percent which isn’t on the lake, but people on the lake are definitely being taxed much higher but we have all the lakefront as you all know. Okay? Highest revenue for city per square foot of roadway. Okay? For the amount of roadway we have and the amount of tax revenue you get, I challenge anybody here to show me any other roadway that you’re getting more tax money per square foot. Okay? This year financial Red Cedar Point watermain breaks. Now, can you just bring up the watermain breaks? Okay. Audience: It’s the red dots. Greg Datillo: Yeah red dots. The red dots one. Okay. This year was really interesting because. Kate Aanenson: Want me to show it on this Paul? Paul Oehme: No. Isn’t it on there? Todd Gerhardt: It’s on the power point. Greg Datillo: There you go. Okay. You know what’s really interesting on this? Is that over 10 years there’s been 12 breaks. Or no, 15 breaks right? No, 12 breaks. Now what’s interesting is see Minnewashta Parkway there? You have a little piece of road there. What’s those red things on Minnewashta Parkway? Are those water breaks? Okay. Now that road was just reconstructed, okay? And what you have to understand is our roads, we have the what? Gray clay or whatever they call it. Yeah. That cast clay or whatever, okay? Even on Minnewashta Parkway, look at all the breaks you’ve got and that’s new and you’re going to now come into our neighborhood. Tear everything up for the whole summer and think we’re not going to have water breaks. We’re dreaming because look. There’s Minnewashta Parkway right there with a 43 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 brand new road and you’ve got water breaks. We have the type of soil and with all the hills and everything we have and our property was not meant for water lines. It wasn’t meant for it. Okay? Because you’ve got all these water breaks. Is it because of the road surface? No. It’s because whatever. So all I’m trying to show here is, if we can go back to the presentation please. Okay. There is, there you go. Okay. We’ve got 15 water breaks over 10 years. Average cost per break $8,000. So your cost was $120,000 for our neighborhood for 10 years. That’s an average cost of $12,000 per year. Okay. Now financial. $85,000 in taxes in the city annual. You’ve got $28,000 interest but we’re really saying eh, that’s, you’re stretching it Datillo. Maybe it’s $5,000. Fine. So now we’re up to $90,000 that we give to the City. Okay? You’ve got $90,000 in revenue. You’ve got $12,000 and that leaves $78,000 dollars for you to come out and fix our potholes every spring because you’re going to have that in our neighborhood because of the roads. Okay? The roads, I wish you could drive on our roads because the city maintenance people have actually increased, improved our roads over the last 20 years. I’m just telling you that our roads, other than in the spring where you’ve got, you know where you come on out for a day. They fix it. So this is much more cost effective. Now the proposal, we would like to preserve the historic neighborhood. We would like to be good stewards of our city’s reduced resources. Todd. I’m going to bring Todd into this in a second here. Okay now, proposal. We agree with Chanhassen City Manager Todd Gerhardt. Quoting him in the Chanhassen paper. Thank you for that interview. I mean this was good timing, okay? Todd Gerhardt: Kind of cold outside. Greg Datillo: Newspaper this past week, in 24 years with the city Gerhardt said he has never seen a revenue shortfall such as what was experienced last year. Okay? Well you know this is what I tell my clients. You can’t do things the way you’ve been doing them the last 10-15 years. Okay? I mean there’s nobody better than you finding a buck somewhere else. I mean here in regards to finding with you know different grants and funds, I mean you have saved me so much tax money from doing that because we’re always, you know I remember having a meeting with you years ago and that was you know, smart man in regards to finding federal money, state money, grants, whatever to get this place fixed up. Okay? Well right now what’d we got? Well according to Tom, I mean Todd, when asked what was the top 3 issues he said what? Todd, what’d you say? The economy. Todd Gerhardt: Economy. Greg Datillo: Okay, which is right on. The economy, we know what’s going on. Projects. Streets. Okay? You know where this is? Yeah, so okay. State shortfall. Here we want to help the community prepare for the 2010 $1.2 billion budget shortfall. There we go. Right there. She was going to tell you okay that that could go grow to $3.9 billion and in a 12 month period, you know we think as a township we’re going to escape this? Come on. You know all I’m saying is you have an opportunity to say hey, next meeting in February let’s really start looking to say what are going to do what the State’s up to here and how is that going to affect us and whatever. But here, step one is to vote no to a resolution 2010. That’s what I’m asking you to do because what you’ve got right here on the way it is, you’re going to have a lot of unhappy residents. We’re going to be spending a lot of money. Maybe you modify it. You do something different but right now we’ve got to be good stewards of the tax money because there’s not going 44 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 to be as much tax money as what we’re thinking there’s going to be because for every one termination we do with the employees, there’s 5. I’m sorry, for 1 new hire there’s 5 terminations right now in this state. One new hire, 5 terms. Okay? So here step two, February council meeting to balance 2009 city books. Because that’s kind of what Todd wanted to do, right? Okay. So on their, thank you so much. If you have any questions that’d be great. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions? At this point. Any thoughts or comments? Greg Datillo: And they have been doing a great job with, in regards to anything we ask. They’re Johnny on the spot and they give it to us so I just want to compliment them and it’s nothing personal or anything, it’s just the timing is not there right now. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Greg Datillo: Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Mr. Oehme, any thoughts or comments on some of the questions raised? Paul Oehme: Sure. I’ll just wrote a couple items down. You bring up the drainage real quick here? The wetland he’s referring to near his house I believe is in this location here and it’s, the water that we’re talking about, the drainage, or going into the proposing pond really doesn’t make it into this area. It’s a completely semi-separate watershed. Most of the water that drains into this wetland here is from South Cedar Road. Some Juniper and east of the intersection of Red Cedar and Juniper so it’s, that water you know we can’t treat that in our pond if we wanted to. It’s completely separate so what we’re trying to treat is something off line from where he’s talking about. So that’s one of the issues. We already talked about the outlet pipe and we’re looking at that. You know obviously we have definitely some concerns about where it’s currently located so we’ll address that as we move, if we move along here. The watermain breaks, I’d have to check on the watermain break issue on Minnewashta. I know that’s ductaliron pipe. That’s newer pipe that’s in, then it is in Red Cedar and my suspicion that’s not watermain breaks. That’s potentially a gate valve issue of some sort. We would classify those breaks on these maps basically as a dig so I don’t think that’s a watermain issue. I think that’s more of a hydrant or something else having problems out there. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Paul Oehme: So. And, and again you know we’re at the feasibility study level. It’s a preliminary design. We acknowledge that there is, we haven’t addressed all the issues out here and that’s what we want to look at is trying to make this a best project that everybody can be happy with so we’re still committed to work with the property owners and find out what can be done to improve the drainage out here and to accommodate some other of their concerns. Mayor Furlong: Mr. Datillo, a quick question here. You’re recommending that we don’t move forward with any of this project. The streets, the. Greg Datillo: As of this meeting on your thing you’re supposed to, you know your resolution. 45 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: Resolution forward. Greg Datillo: Yeah. Mayor Furlong: And the resolution, to clarify for those watching at home is really just to authorize staff and the engineering firm to go forward with the final design phase. At which point once that final design, and correct me if I’m wrong Mr. Oehme, once that final design is done, then that would then be submitted to potential bidders, contractors to do the project and then we’d have the actual costs so the proposal here tonight is not to order the project. It is to authorize them to finalize the scope of the project to deal with some of the questions that have been brought up with storm water or street width and those types of things. I guess my question is, and it was brought up a little bit by Mister, Councilman McDonald earlier tonight, the issue of delay. Would it be your proposal that the project, that these improvements never be done? Or would you, when would be the time to do the improvements? If they need to be done. If they don’t need to be done, obviously that would be a never. But do you think that the street improvements and storm water improvements should be done at some time? Greg Datillo: The street improvement, if you come out to our area, you will find Minnewashta Parkway has more boom, boom, boom’s than any of our roads. Minnewashta Parkway, all the sewer tops have all been down so if you drive down, you’re getting your car jarred. You drive down our street, there’s not one place that you’ll get jarred. Okay? So this thing about our roads are so bad. Your city maintenance people are A-plus. There’s never been a time that I’ve never been able to drive out of there with a snowplow. It’s always been plowed. There isn’t, when there’s a pothole you call the City and they’re out there and they fix it. Is that going to cost the City $1.3 million dollars? Come on, it’s not. I mean it’s just, so you’re asking me a question. Under the, my recommendation is, my, I’m asking you to vote no at this time. Let them go back and try to you know do whatever we’re talking about here. Especially with the drainage and whatever. Check the lake quality where the water’s currently going on out. Okay? Because we’re talking about a lot of money and it’s not a time we want to. Let’s say here if the, if all this, you know there are some people that are for it and I think they were maybe afraid in coming. Just to be fair to the neighbors, okay because there’s some saying hey, this is the time to take the money because this might be the last year Datillo that we could get the money. That’s the problem we have had the last 20 years. People want to keep taking and taking. Wrong. We’re just going more to debt and we have to start getting responsible and say you know something, we’ve got to, we’ve got limited amount of resources and are we really doing good? I honestly feel you are going to harm the lake with what you’re going to do because no water is better than some water that’s in a holding pond and that holding pond’s so small, we get a downpour and you see all the streets that are going to dump into that. That’s going to stir everything up and you can’t tell me it’s not going to get you know the chemicals and stuff back on your beach. It’s just, I’m sorry. Man made rules work most the time but in our situation it, it’s 130 years. See and am I against progress? No. I’m against making things worst and spending money to make it worst. That’s how you know, so are we trying to kill it forever? Well right now under what you currently have, if it stays that, I would say yes for sure. Mayor Furlong: Okay. 46 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Greg Datillo: Because you know there’s. Mayor Furlong: No, I wanted to clarify that and I guess part of it is, how much time, you know part of this point in the process is to check in and see if we should continue to spend time and resources to finalize the project scope or not and so if the, you know we can keep doing marginal things but eventually either we’ve got to say we’re going to, you know we should finalize the plans so we really know what the answers to these questions are. Greg Datillo: And that’s great steward and you’re right on and with your February budget meeting, actually you really start going through and especially after Julianne comes with what she projects what’s going to happen on the state level, then make it because it’s a large dollar amount so you know there to go further I would say it depends on whatever the city budget, whatever we’re able to afford as a city. So. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Greg Datillo: Okay, thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. Great feedback from the residents. I think the number one concern brought up by the residents is the storm water management of this area and I say when we move ahead with the plans and specs with this project that we should look at alternatives. Once we have those alternatives completed, bring them back and show them to the public. I think we go to one extreme showing what what’s best practices to one where almost minimal impact would be shown and provide alternatives. That’s what I would like to see and I think that’s what we owe the residents is alternatives of how we can manage this storm water in this area with less impact on the residents and, because I think everybody supports the idea of rebuilding the streets. You’ve got 37 year old sewer and water lines out there. You know if you’re going to do the street now’s the time to do the sewer and water mains and so staff would recommend that we move ahead with the plans and specs with alternatives of looking at a variety of different storm water management practices. Mayor Furlong: I guess the question that comes up, if the council did move forward this evening with plans and specs and new information comes in over the next few months in terms of budgets and such like that, are those plans and specs, do we still get value out of that if the decision’s made not to go forward this year but perhaps in a few years? By going forward now, will we still get the value out of that? Todd Gerhardt: Paul will tell you that plans and specs have a 5 to 8 year life shelf expectancy. You’re not going to lose that data and you can utilize it. If you decide not to move ahead with it now but 5 years, that information’s still going to be good. Do you disagree? 47 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Paul Oehme: Yeah, that’s fine. In 5 to 8 years you know you’re going to, there’ll probably a new garage or some of the other improvements in the neighborhood. You would just want to verify some of those improvements so minimal cost to update the plans. Councilman Litsey: Due to the tight timeline of this project, are you going to have enough, I mean time to work with the residents to really look at this drainage issue if we move forward? Paul Oehme: I’d have to refer that to our consultant. I mean he’d have to deal with some, most of the legwork on that and addressing their concerns. Kevin Kawlewski: We would anticipate with the alternates that Administrator Gerhardt is suggesting, you know possibly potentially 2 to 3 more neighborhood meetings. We will have people out in the field verifying things. Possibly meeting with residents as need be. We want to make sure that we’re getting what the resident wants and what the council wants as well so it’s in our best interest to put forth that effort so yes, we would make those attempts. Councilman Litsey: I mean potentially doing so and if we need to adequately address those concerns, could that in and of itself push this project into another year if that starts getting extended out? Paul Oehme: I think it would. You know we, like you said we are on a, somewhat of a tight timeline but you know one of the biggest caveats here too is potentially the easement issue so we still need to work with the property owners on that so we really need to finalize the design and then look at what the easements potentially that we still would need are, or right-of-way so, and then negotiate those terms out too so it does, it would definitely take some time but we’ll press on though. Councilman Litsey: …make sense to move ahead at this juncture and do this first step? Paul Oehme: I think it definitely does because it really flushes out what potentially the ultimate drainage design for that neighborhood should be and it gives us a basis to move on from there and potentially if need be, bid it out in the future. Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. My suggestion would be to dual track this. That we would dual track it. That’d we work with the neighborhood on looking at alternatives for the storm water management as we move ahead and prepare plans and specs and the neighborhood wouldn’t be out anything on that. We would be out preparing plans and specs so we have that expense but it’s you know, I don’t think you’re going to be throwing that information away. Those plans and specs are going to be good for 5 to 8 year period and we’re kind of going into this blind not having some of that information. Getting the survey work done. Knowing where all the utilities are and where drainage patterns might be that we’re just guessing right now. Councilman Litsey: Just so people understand how that’s, I think you’ve done a pretty good job now of explaining that. By moving forward we’re getting better data on which to rely on but that may or may not mean the project would still continue this year, depending on how that tracks. Is that fair? 48 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Kevin Kawlewski: Absolutely. One option that may be possible is if it takes a little bit longer, maybe the project starts after Labor Day you know so that eases up the summer months. Maybe some of it with the ponds, some of the other things, if that’s still an option, gets done over the winter where ground water is less of an issue. You know so there are, there may be some benefits associated with pushing it a little bit too. Councilman Litsey: One of the things too I think you pointed out that you take into account, I’m not saying this is the driving force behind moving forward but bidding is very competitive right now and there are some considerable, if it’s a doable project. Kevin Kawlewski: Absolutely. Honestly I don’t think that’s going to change drastically between this spring and next fall. Councilman Litsey: So you have a window there which to capture that? Kevin Kawlewski: Yeah. Todd Gerhardt: And I just want the residents and the council to understand the action that you would take to go ahead and prepare plans and specs would force us to go in and assess the neighborhood. That is not what we’re doing tonight. Mayor Furlong: It would or would not? Todd Gerhardt: Would not. So we are not, the action you’re taking will not kick in an assessment back to the residents. That would be a whole other public hearing on that issue. Mayor Furlong: We get to do this again. Todd Gerhardt: Oh yeah. Audience: Do we have enough money at this time…when you say assessment? Todd Gerhardt: The $5,000 per home, that would not be kicked in as a part of the approval of plans and specs. Councilman Litsey: Tonight. What’s on the table tonight. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman McDonald: If I could then, one of the options you’ll also bring back is no action at all. Is that right? We’ll look at the impact of what that means. Todd Gerhardt: You always have that option. 49 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: And to Mr. McDonald’s point, that’s not just an option but we’ll get information on that from a, what the costs are and ongoing utility costs as well as other estimates so. Councilman McDonald: Right, yep. Todd Gerhardt: The impact. Mayor Furlong: So the alternative of not going forward with the project is not free. Councilman McDonald: Right. There is a cost in not going forward with the project either. Mayor Furlong: Right, and that will come at that time. Okay. The public hearing is still open. Did you have anything else right now to add? Okay, I certainly want to make sure we give an opportunity for anybody who wishes to address the council this evening so if anybody else would like to address the council I’d invite you to come forward at this time. Dorothy Downing: I am Dorothy Downing. I live at 7200 Juniper Road. I’m right about here. I’m right across from the pond and my point is, up to this point everything, all the rain water has just evaporated. Why can’t we leave it that way? It puddles right down here in front of Tim Nelson’s at the end of my road and we’ve let it puddle. Why can’t we just, why the pond? That bothers me that Greg has it behind his house right now and it stinks in the summertime and I don’t want it across from us and it’s stinking, and this is when we get it going now. Let it puddle. Mayor Furlong: Puddle on the road, Mr. Oehme? Dorothy Downing: And evaporate. Paul Oehme: That’s a minor maintenance practice. I mean typically we don’t want to pond water on roads. I mean it’s for a host of reasons. Dorothy Downing: But it’s been doing that and I came and asked about it and I said can’t we channel that so it doesn’t do that because I used to walk to my mom’s there. Paul Oehme: Right. I mean that’s our ultimate goal is to not have it puddle. Dorothy Downing: And they said no. We want it to evaporate. Paul Oehme: You know we’re trying to put in our best management practices for storm water and treating and water quality issues so. I mean that’s our ultimate goal so however you come to a resolution on that issue, we’re just going to work towards some sort of design. Dorothy Downing: Thank you. 50 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Ric Anding: Ric Anding. I have one more comment. Question for Paul. If the City proceeds with this project is there any reason why you can’t take those storm sewers from, I think they’re planning to stop the curbing at Red Cedar Point and Juniper…beyond that point. Is there any reason why you can’t put that storm sewer deep enough to drain it down to the Minnewashta Parkway storm sewer. The elevation should be enough. Paul Oehme: Yeah, we can definitely take a look at that. I’m worried about… Ric Anding: Would that take care of your water pond problem there if you could do that. If you could get it deep enough. If you guys decide to go ahead with it. To take and put the manholes or the storm sewer grates in there and route it the other way. Paul Oehme: There’s a couple factors that I know we need to address if we were to do that and I know we talked about bringing a little bit more water that way but not all of it but you know we’ll definitely take a look at it in our options. Ric Anding: And that’s not going to take care of the water flow from Red Cedar Point north on Juniper because that water’s still going to go that way but from Juniper down to Red Cedar Point, all that water, pick up that storm sewer and go that route. I think that would be a good way to handle all the problems we’re having with the holding pond. Thank you. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Others that would like to address the council this evening. Anyone else? Appreciate everybody’s comments and input and you’ve given staff and us quite a bit to think about. If there’s nobody else who would like to come forward this evening, is there a motion from council to close the public hearing? Councilman Litsey: So moved. Mayor Furlong: Is there a second? Councilman McDonald: Second. Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on that? Councilman Litsey moved, Councilman McDonald seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The public hearing was closed. Mayor Furlong: Public hearing is closed. Council. Thoughts. Comments. On this. The item before us tonight again is to authorize staff to move forward to finalize the project plans. As Mr. Gerhardt said, they would propose that that would include a number of alternatives, one of which would be nothing. Whether it’s on the storm water or the utilities or the streets, and the various aspects to this project. If there are street improvements there may be, we may not move forward or may not be wise to move forward on some of the other projects that some of the storm water items so, but I guess the question is, is the council, thoughts and comments as far as moving forward with plans and specs at this time. 51 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah, I’ll start. Councilwoman Ernst: Go ahead. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilwoman Tjornhom. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Well no I just want to thank everyone for coming here tonight and for commenting. I think while these assessment, or not the assessment but while these projects in the public hearing sometimes we’re meeting under unpleasant circumstances, I know that I certainly enjoy getting to know the residents and really hearing what their life is like in Chanhassen. You know I’ve learned tonight that you know your neighborhood is probably generational you know and it’s a special place for all of you people and I appreciate all the information that you’ve given us. I think the most of these meetings we have, the more we learn about what’s right for our town and so with that being said I, I do think we should move ahead tonight and prepare the plans and specs for the neighborhood. But also know that I did hear you and that I do represent you and I appreciate everything that you did say and I look forward to moving forward in this process and figuring out what is the best thing for your neighborhood and what is the best thing for our town. So thank you everybody. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilwoman Ernst. Councilwoman Ernst: Really I don’t think I’ve ever in my years here as council been to a hearing where I’ve heard so many citizens voice not only concern but potential solutions and I want you to know I really appreciate that. I like the idea that when Manager Todd Gerhardt was talking about as we move forward with the plans and preparation for this project, if the project is in fact a go, that we’re going to work directly with the citizens to get their feedback and I think that’s crucial in this project. And you know there is a huge expense to all of you if we move forward with this project and so we want to make sure that we’re addressing your concerns and minimizing any costs that are not necessary, as some of you have mentioned tonight. Of course the drainage issue is, has been mentioned and I think that was pretty loud and clear tonight and so looking at alternatives and trying to resolve that, whether it means letting it evaporate in the road. Whether that means you know have a holding pond as was suggested. Whatever that means, and so I support the idea of moving forward with this. Having the 2 or 3 neighborhood meetings that was mentioned. Ted, I think you mentioned that and so I think that, I think it’s a great plan and so I would support it. Especially when there’s no cost to any of you. Mayor Furlong: Councilman Litsey. Councilman Litsey: Sure. First of all I agree. I think it’s great everybody showing up and expressing concerns but also potential solutions. That’s very helpful in the process. I think it’s prudent to move to the next step of getting better data to rely on to see whether we should change things. Modify things to a certain extent. Potentially not even do it. We’re not committing at this point to doing the project per se but we’re, I think what I hear everyone saying, we really need more valid information to base these decisions on, and work more closely with the neighborhood to understand the unique characteristics and you live there so you know a lot of the 52 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 things going on there in terms of what we’ve been discussing so I’d be in favor of taking that next step to see where that takes us. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Councilman McDonald, thoughts. Councilman McDonald: I’m in favor of going forward but you know one of the things I did ask for was what’s the impact of doing nothing at all. I do recognize the uniqueness of this neighborhood, having dealt with it quite a few times over the past few years. And I do think that there are very significant problems that your neighborhood presents to us that others don’t. So it is a I think a rather, needs to be a well thought out decision that we make and I think that again you’ve given us a lot of things to think about. I appreciate the fact you come here with ideas. Most people just you know don’t want to do it. They really don’t give us a lot of I guess room to work with and everything and I think what’s happened, you’ve made it very clear you want to be a part of all this and I think we’re very open to doing that and I think the decision that we come out with eventually you know should have your support also, so that’s what I would want to strive toward is that, you know whatever plan we come up with, it’s in conjunction with what works in your neighborhood and I think as Councilman Litsey said, maybe we modify it. I don’t know. Right now I think everything’s on the table. We’re willing to look at a number of different solutions, including not moving forward but I want everybody to understand the cost of not moving forward. There is a cost. It’s not free. It’s not as though we just, you ignore it for a couple years and come back to it. We come back to it and it could be significantly higher and that’s part of our decision making process. You brought up the whole thing about our stewardship of the city and it’s finances. One of the reasons we’ve got the AAA bond rating is because we do pay attention to the city, to the infrastructure and what we try to look at is to make sure that all areas of the city have equality of services. Roads, sewer, water. All of those types of needs but as you pointed out, you know if you deal strictly in man made law, there is no flexibility with that and I think common sense has got to come in and that’s our job as part of the council is to apply common sense to the law so I’m in favor of going forward. I’d like to know a few more things you know to give the staff an opportunity I think to talk to some individuals and let’s see what we come up with. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. This has been an enjoyable evening, and I don’t say that facetiously. It is enjoyable to, as was mentioned earlier by my colleagues, to not only talk to residents, listen to what their concerns are but also to listen to residents that have some alternatives. Some solutions and knowledge that we simply as our representatives don’t have because they live in the neighborhood. This is a, this project has been on our long term plan for a number of years and it was always one that I kind of look at and say that’s probably not going to be a short public hearing when Red Cedar Point comes up. I was proven right I guess but for good reasons and that is there are a lot of issues here. This is not a neighborhood that was developed 15-20 years ago and with some design standards that we enjoy today. There are a lot of issues here and we’ve got to make sure that whatever is done, if anything is done, but whatever is done, is done right and done well and fits in with what the residents need and what the city needs and try to find that balance and that’s what we’re always trying to do is find that balance between providing good solid public services to our residents and also meeting their needs individually as much as possible. From a, as part of the process I think it’s good to listen to ideas and suggestions here at this point because we are going to have, in this case the council 53 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 moves forward tonight authorizing the plans to be completed, we will have other alternatives that we typically would not do. Typically there are some more straight forward. It’s pretty clear cut what the right direction to go is. Whether it’s with regard to the utilities or the storm water management or the roads itself. Here it’s not so clear cut and so we’re going to spend some more time and get it, make sure that we know what the alternatives are. But I think it does make sense to go forward. I think we have, we have the opportunity in front of us to address some of these questions. Come up with what the alternatives are. Maybe the alternatives are going to lead us to improvements in some of the areas. Whether it’s streets or the utilities, storm water management. Maybe not make any improvements in some of the other areas but at least we’ll look at it and make sure that we have complete and information and look at the various alternatives. It was raised tonight, you know why can’t we just let the water keep doing what it’s doing? That may ultimately be the answer. I don’t know. It’s not something that we’ve done in my experience is to use the streets as our storm water ponds for gathering, but ultimately maybe that will be the answer but going forward tonight allows us to address the other alternatives and to make a wise decision of what’s done, if anything in these areas so I think it makes sense to go forward this evening. We will see all of you again before any decisions are made as to what’s done and when it’s done and we will all have better information at that time. But I do appreciate everybody coming and sharing their with us. We did have and I should ask staff, we did receive a number of emails that were distributed to council from some residents that weren’t here. Just for the record some of the concerns related to the storm water plans. Similar to what we heard this evening. Also there were others that were in support of the project moving forward so make sure that those are a part of the record, if they aren’t already. Or I would ask staff to do that. Make that part of the public hearing. So I think it’s a challenging project but challenges can certainly be met and I think in the end we will come out collectively with a decision as to what’s best for all concerned and that’s our goal so, and if there are no other comments this evening from the council, if somebody would like to make a motion. Councilwoman Ernst: I’ll make a motion. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilwoman Ernst: I make a motion to order the preparation of plans and specifications for the 2010 street reconstruction project 10-01(b) Red Cedar Point neighborhood. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilman McDonald: I’ll second. Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion from council? Resolution #2010-04: Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the City Council order the preparation of plans and specifications for the 2010 Street Reconstruction Project 10-01(b), Red Cedar Point Neighborhood. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. 54 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: Thank you everybody. We will be in touch and staff will be sure to make sure that they stay in touch with everybody and appreciate all your input very much. Thank you. Let’s take, given the time here, we’ve got just a couple other things but let’s take a quick 5 minute recess or quick recess subject to the call of the Chair. (The City Council took a short recess at this point in the meeting.) VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: UPDATE ON PROJECTS AND LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES, SENATOR JULIANNE ORTMAN. Mayor Furlong: Senator Julianne Ortman is here this evening and Senator, welcome. Thank you for coming and welcome you to say a few comments and give us some information about the legislative update. Sen. Julianne Ortman: Well good evening Mr. Mayor and council members. It was a pleasure to be here this evening and hear your public hearing about assessment in Minnewashta. I agree with the comments that were made. It’s very seldom that you have a public hearing where folks come forward and want to be part of the solution instead of criticizing government so in that sense it was a very enlightening evening for me and I was very proud of my city. So as a resident here I’m very proud of all the work that you all do and when I see residents come forward and represent themselves that way, it’s a great moment in government so. I will be very brief because it’s been a long evening but I did want to come by. Say Happy New Year to all. I come by every year to talk about what’s ahead in the legislative session. There are a few things I know about this upcoming session and there are lots of unknowns I have to say. Mr. Datillo got it right. We have a $1.2 billion dollar deficit. I think everybody knows that. What they might not be aware of is how significant that is for the long term. We have a $1.2 billion dollar deficit for this biennium but the next biennium that will be $5.6 billion and you’re talking about a budget that’s $35 billion. Roughly $35 billion in a biennium, that’s a very significant shortfall in revenues due mostly to a shortfall in income taxes paid by residents of the State of Minnesota. You all face your own issues with declining property values and property taxes, but at the State it’s been the income tax and obviously that translates to very difficult situations in people’s homes. The unemployment rate is 10% nationwide but I think often we overlook the unemployment rate when you add in those folks who have either given up looking or those folks that are under employed and that takes up to the 17% and over so we are in very difficult times and challenging. I mean I don’t need to tell you more. I think the folks at home know more than we do about how tough this has been and so that is not the purpose of my message. The purpose of my message in talking about this $5.6 billion dollar deficit is to remind folks today it’s a structural deficit. We have a very significant structural problem in the State of Minnesota with our budget. We have an actual revenue income of about $30 billion dollars in this biennium. Our $5.6 billion dollar deficit is based on a projection that we will have $33 billion in revenues in the next biennium and I’m very hard pressed to trust the economist when he tells us that we’re going to have $3 billion dollars more in revenues in the next biennium than in this biennium. He tells us that he believes that there will be more in income tax revenue to the State of Minnesota in the next biennium. I sure he’s right but that is a very significant gamble to say that we will get that and still have a $5.6 billion dollar deficit so if you look at it in a more conservative way, that deficit could be $5.6 billion to $8.6 billion if we don’t actually, if those new revenues don’t 55 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 materialize and if we don’t cut spending so 38 billion versus either 30 at the current rate of revenues or 33 billion with a very positive, optimistic projection. For me and for you that means we can’t have government that operates in a business as usual way. And I think people have been saying that for a while, including myself but I think we’ve come to the place where we can no longer sustain government in the way that we are operating, and we no longer have the luxury to allow government to continue to grow. Our family’s budgets aren’t growing. They’re declining. Our private sector is declining and government has to shrink too, and we all as elected officials are tasked with finding a way to shrink government and shrink it’s expenses because we can no longer afford what government is spending, and that goes from your particular relationship with residents to mine to the federal but it also goes back to other levels of government that people aren’t necessarily really familiar with like the Met Council and what impacts they have in our communities. Today was a very good example of that. I’ve seen examples throughout Carver County. Or the soil and water boards and the watershed districts. We have a state water board that manages water. We have more water planning entities in the United States and in the State of Minnesota than could, anybody could possibly explain in an hour to just a regular resident in this city. How could you possibly explain all of the government entities that regulate this? And the bigger concern from me with all this excess regulation is that it creates obstacles at the very recovery that we are going to rely on in the next few years. If we don’t get out of the way of development, if we don’t get out of the way of folks that want to take us to that next successful economic recovery, I don’t know how we’ll do it so we have to get out of the way. Government collectively has to get out of the way and allow people to succeed so I have sent to Mr. Gerhardt a couple of proposals. I can’t say that I know that there’s a silver bullet to this issue. There is no silver bullet. I came to ask for help to tell you that I can’t do it alone. There is not going to be one bill at the capitol that’s going to all of a sudden solve this 5 to 8 billion dollar deficit. It is going to take a lot of hard work. It’s going to take many proposals. Lots of good ideas. They have to generate here and they have to begin in January and not on February 4 when we start in the legislative session. We have to begin now at the League of Minnesota Cities. At the county organizations. At these organizations that represent collectively the cities and the counties. We’re going to have to build support into our proposals and we’re going to have to change the shape and role of government in the next few years. So I sent two that I hope that you’ll consider. We’ve had some meetings in the past where we said let’s have a sit down workshop session where we can go through some of these proposals and see what maybe we can do. Are there mandates that we can roll back? Great. I’m happy to support them but then let’s start working on them now. Right away and not wait until February because to build the alliances we need to pass them will take some significant time. The two proposals that I sent you. One is relating to Metropolitan Council governance. I was at a City of Victoria meeting where the folks there are very frustrated with the impact the City Council has in their day to day planning business, or their water business. I’ve seen that out in Hamburg and in Mayer and New Germany. People are really frustrated and when I went to look at the issue I realized that there is a huge disconnect between the residents and the Met Council and that disconnect goes beyond you and me. It’s the oversight for the Met Council has performed and designated to a legislative oversight commission so it’s a legislative oversight commission on metropolitan government. Well honestly when they review the Met Council’s budget, they make a recommendation to the legislature. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. I bet that most legislators, even in the Twin Cities are hard pressed ever to have seen a budget. And I’ve seen sections like the transportation budget. I know that’s a really big problem. That transportation budget is 56 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 completely not sustainable. There’s no way it’s sustainable. They keep building and they don’t have the funds to operate what they’re building and we recognize that in the transportation committee. We all talked about it and we passed the budget anyway. We filled all the holes we could with all the cash that was around. We stripped out of this account and threw it into the operating account and we know there’s going to be a shortfall again in the next biennium. A very significant one. So the first bill that I sent you would say, let’s look at this oversight structure. Is that sufficient oversight for the Metropolitan Council? Should we maybe take away that legislative oversight commission? Abolish it and have the legislature itself do the homework. Have the legislature, all legislators across the entire state obliged to vote on that and have a committee, a senate and a house committee actually have the original jurisdiction for oversight. I think it would create more accountability for the residents here in Chanhassen and across the Twin Cities and the State so I hope you’ll look at that one. Share your thoughts with me. I don’t want to be out there alone. If you think it’s good, great. If it’s not, suggest some alternatives. Let’s work on things as the residents have pointed out was, we can. Let’s start trying to solve problems and not just attack and argue about who should be doing what. We all should be doing everything we can. The second bill is about some soil and water boards. Another invisible level of government that most people don’t understand and we have so many levels of government dealing with water that it’s time for folks to take a very strong position and say we don’t need all this regulation. We don’t need all this government. Cities do a fine job of being concerned about pollution. Do we need the MPCA in that? I’m not so sure. Do we need to have the DNR regulating the same things that you’re regulating? The same thing that the County is regulating. The same thing that the State Board of Water and Soil is funded every year to oversee. I’m not sure we need all that so let’s begin with the consolidation of government that I think needs to happen here and let’s put that on the fast track. I would really appreciate your help in going around to all the other cities to ask the same thing. To say what can we do. These are two ideas I have. They’re just ideas but let’s talk about the ideas that you have. I will support them. I’ll work at them. Try and figure out how much of it we can take forward as a state but we have to do something and the time is right now for great leadership and so if you’re not already participating in some of the lobbying organizations for cities, hope you will. I know Mr. Mayor you’ve taken on a leadership position. I know that Councilwoman Tjornhom serves on the TAB board and I think that’s been a great service. I don’t know of all of your efforts in this regard but the City of Chanhassen has the opportunity to lead the State in a dialogue about how best to manage cities. You’re doing a great job. I would say the same thing to the City of Chaska and have. The same thing to the City of Waconia. I live and represent a district that doesn’t come to the State and ask the State to solve all the problems and create all the solutions. I find that I live in a city where we work on our own problems and take responsibility and solve our problems and that could be a model. Some of the experiences you’ve had with your bond rating and cash flow and some of those issues could really be helpful to other cities that are dealing with some of these issues as well and so I challenge you to take part in those bigger organizations. Lead them. Decide what’s on the agenda. Take them forward in the future. We need your help on a statewide basis so take what you do and expand on it. We would all benefit on it across the state. So with that I’d be more than happy to come back Mr. Gerhardt and go through a work session and Mr. Mayor, any time you’d like me back to talk about any particular issues, I’m here to serve. If you have questions tonight I’ll take them. If you don’t have them tonight because it’s late, I understand but please know it’s a great pleasure to represent the city of Chanhassen. 57 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Mayor Furlong: Thank you Senator and I know that we’ve had, we’ll certainly take you up on your offer to come back at a work session. Sit down and we’ve done that before and kick around ideas and see what makes sense to move forward so I appreciate that and the issues you raised are serious structural issues and it’s, I was at a meeting today. The Regional Council of Mayors and we had the State Economist there and there are some real problems and it’s big and it’s tough and so it’s going to take everybody working together. And it’s likely going to take a change of mindset. The way things have been done in the past. The services provided. Whether at the state, county or city levels, they’re just not going to be able to be provided. It’s you know, it’s just not there so. We’ve got some challenges ahead of us but we appreciate your service and certainly if anybody has any questions for the Senator this evening, I don’t want to cut anybody short but certainly extend an invitation for you to come back and we can talk about some other things. I know that last year we put together some initiatives and some unfunded mandates and some extra costs. I think we shared that with you. To the extent that’s been updated, Mr. Gerhardt maybe you can make sure that the Senator gets that as well. Todd Gerhardt: Sure. Mayor Furlong: And that’s even one of those strategic initiatives that we’ve talked about. We had our first planning session on Saturday and again this evening was to try to figure out which ones to focus on because there are so many changes that could be made. When you look at with some common sense you just say this is ridiculous but we’ll try to work with you and with Metro Cities and the League of Minnesota Cities as well to try to focus and get some things done. Start moving along. Mr. Gerhardt, you wanted to? Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, try to set something up here before the end of January. Get Representative Hoppe, yourself and go through our legislative priorities before you know your session really starts to gear up here and work with you and our Metro Cities and League of Minnesota Cities to help your efforts. Sen. Julianne Ortman: Thank you. With respect to the unfunded mandates, I would ask for maybe one other step before we sit down and talk and that might be the draft of legislation. Just a general idea. You have great counsel, Mr. Knutson. I’m sure he can draw up what he thinks might be the first draft of a change and then I can take that back as a first draft. As a proposal. Get some input. Take it to the reviser’s office and continue the work on that, but it often starts with not just an idea but maybe that first draft and there’s a lot of, it’s really hard to get from one place to the next so if you could do that, I know that Representative Hoppe and I both would be happy to take it back to the House and Senate and see if we can’t build a coalition around the idea. If you’re facing these unfunded mandates, other cities are too and so let’s move that ball and let’s not drop it this year and I’m not always sure where that ball gets dropped but I think it’s somewhere between good idea and a bill. I think it’s somewhere and so if you can take that first draft. I’ll take it from there. Todd Gerhardt: Okay. Sen. Julianne Ortman: Okay. 58 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 Todd Gerhardt: Sounds like a deal. Mayor Furlong: Good. Any other questions? Senator, thank you. We appreciate you coming in this evening. Sen. Julianne Ortman: Thank you very much and have a good evening. Mayor Furlong: Happy new year. Councilman McDonald: Thanks for staying late. COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS. Mayor Furlong: Let’s move now to council presentations. Any comments or discussion on council presentations this evening? Just some quick updates for the council. I’ll be very quick. Mr. Gerhardt and I were at a leadership meeting with Eastern Carver County School Districts on Saturday. I think we talked a little bit about this but one, some of the issues that came up related to trails. Connectivity of trails. Connecting trails amongst cities. I know that’s something we’ve talked about as a strategic initiatives but it was a good discussion. Also economic development and education issues. Working with the other cities and the school districts to try to provide some additional education opportunities as well. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, secondary education. Some college type courses. I think everybody’s been waiting for the ed campus to move ahead and I think there may be some energy and drive to maybe look at an alternative in the meantime. I think the school district’s very interested in moving ahead with that. A lot of mayors and city managers were also pretty excited of getting something started in this area. They think there’s a big need. School district knows there’s a need and had been working with a group prior to the ed campus coming out and I think everybody thought that the ed campus had it’s energy moving forward and I think this economy has played a factor in where that might be in the near future. Other things that were brought up that was pretty exciting, Carver County Community Development Agency or Carver County HRA as I’ve known them as, but they’ve acquired 36 acres in the City of Carver. Just east of, of their public works facility. Or west of there, sorry. And so they’re planning a campus of office complex, maintenance facility for all the properties that they manage. Would also like to do a mixed development of additional housing and kind of interesting to see how that one plays out into the future. I know they were looking in Chanhassen for more of just an office building and they found an opportunity out in Carver and wish them well as they move ahead with that. I did mention earlier about Southwest Transit Summit coming up this coming Wednesday at 7:00. I have a flyer here I can pass around for council that may be interested. It’s at the Oak Ridge Conference Center and they’re going to talk about transportation and the impacts on business in the southwest area so, not just the transit but roads and multi-modal transit. Rail and rapid bus transit so should be very interesting and if you’ve got time to attend, I think it’ll be good. Mayor Furlong: And I would encourage you, I think I saw an email today there were about 80 people signed up. Business owners and managers and such in the area and others as well so if 59 Chanhassen City Council – January 11, 2010 you’re interested, Todd maybe people could let you know and you can make sure that they get the RSVP’s. Councilwoman Tjornhom: I think I’ll be attending that. Todd Gerhardt: Okay. Mayor Furlong: Should be a good discussion. Councilwoman Tjornhom: I probably should bring something about transportation. Mayor Furlong: Fair enough. Anything else? ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Todd Gerhardt: We started to move into the public works building. We’ve got I’d say a little over half the equipment moved into the storage area. You know anybody that may want a tour of the facility, maybe I can plan one prior to one of our work sessions again. It really looks nice. The guys are really excited and very bright is the best way to give a description of the building. Natural light. Painting those ceilings white made a dramatic difference compared to our existing facility so I’ll try to plan something in the future here. That’s all I have. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt? CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION. None. Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City Council meeting was adjourned at 10:15 p.m. Submitted by Todd Gerhardt City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 60